STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. I7 



and seven dollars a barrel net to the grower, as they did in 

 years past, growers could afford to haul them twenty miles to 

 the depot. Now the time has come where the man who makes 

 money in apples must produce them at the lowest possible cost 

 of production, like any other business man. He cannot aft'ord to 

 haul a load of ten or twelve barrels of apples twenty miles to 

 the cars at a cost of forty cents a barrel, as some of our fruit 

 growers have done. These people will be gradually forced out 

 of the apple market. Personally I would not make an mvest- 

 ment in an apple proposition which is over six miles from the 

 shipping point and which does not have reasonably good roads 

 to the depot. 



This shows one of our typical apple soils, the Hagerstown 

 stony loam. You can see the flinty limestone fragments on the 

 surface. There is a red clay subsoil about twelve inches below 

 the surface. I do not care so much what the surface soil is, if 

 only there is a strong clay sub-soil. The more gravel or chirk 

 in the surface soil the better ; it acts as a mulch on top of the 

 land, making it less subject to drought. 



This picture taken on my farm five years ago shows a crop of 

 corn that will hardly average five bushels to the acre. The 

 next picture shows the same field as it is today, with a promis- 

 ing young orchard on it. These two pictures illustrate this 

 point that land may be utterly worthless for general farm crops 

 and still be excellent for fruit. My farm is on Barren Ridge; 

 it was so named a hundred years ago by the Pennsylvania Dutch 

 farmers who settled that country, because it would not produce 

 good corn and grass, so they thought it was worthless. Now 

 it is worth twice as much per acre as their rich farm land, be- 

 cause it will raise apples. Some time every soil, even those we 

 now consider barren, will find its sphere of usefulness. 



Planting. Here are one, two and tliree year old trees. I 

 always have preferred a one year old tree provided I could get 

 them at least four feet high and stout; then the head may be 

 formed at the desired height. Moreover, they will come into 

 bearing just as early as two year old trees. 



Cropping the young orchard. My method of caring for the 

 young trees possibly is somewhat different from yours. You 

 have heard it advised that a sown crop should never be grown 

 between young apple trees — always grow a cultivated crop, 

 like potatoes or corn. That is right if it is feasible ; but I have 

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