Young Trees vs. Old Trees* 



Prof. G. Reynaud, Oka Agricultural Institute, La Trappe, Quebec 



ONE of the most difficult problems 

 that confronts the fruit grower of 

 the province of Quebec, is that of 

 labor at the time of picking, packing 

 and shipping. What a torment to him 

 when the trees are loaded with ripe fruit 

 and there is no one to pick them? 



If, perchance, he discovers a few train- 

 ed pickers and packers, then on account 

 of their scarcity he is at their mercy in as 

 much as salary and also celerity and per- 

 fectness in work are concerned. Hence, 

 in too many cases the sale of the crop 

 en bloc. This means a loss to the grow- 

 er who desperately throws himself di- 

 rectly into the hands of the fruit dealer, 

 as the latter appears to him as a being 

 sent by Providence itself to save the situ- 

 ation, but who too often saves the situa- 

 tion at the expense of the grower and of 

 the development and prosperity of the 

 fruit growing industry. 



Encircled between extra high price of 

 labor and the decidedly too low prices 

 offered by the dealer, who buys the fruit 

 en bloc, and picks it himself in the 

 grower's orchard, the latter quite often 

 chooses to neglect the orchard, and the 

 fruit industry of the country is by no 

 means pushed forward by such neglect- 

 fulness. I know growers, who, for want 

 of decent laborers at decent prices, are 

 compelled to shake and throw down the 

 fruit from the trees and sell it bruised 

 aad harmed, as it is, for what they can 

 get on the streets. Having eventually 

 to deal with that scarcity and high price 

 of labor, one must have recourse to 

 some means or methods which will re- 

 duce to a minimum the amount of labor 

 required, especially in the fall. 



OLD OEOHAKDS EEQTTIEE MUCH LABOR 



If one compares the amount of labor 

 an old orchard necessitates, with that re- 

 quired by a younger plantation, he finds 

 out that the comparison as to lighter 

 work is in favor of the junior orchard. 

 Forty-year-old trees have acquired such 

 a height and width that taking the fruit 

 from them is long and sometimes hard 

 or unpleasant work. Some of the fruits 

 are so much out of reach that the pick- 

 ers are tempted, perhaps compelled, to 



fi, simply fling them on the ground by shak- 

 ing the boughs. This fruit will neces- 

 sarily be harmed, and will bring but a 

 low price. 



Even if the fruit is not cast on the 

 soil, it is liable to be damaged by the 



\fi fingers of the picker who is annoyed by 

 the work he has to perform in the midst 

 of long and numerous branches and 

 boughs. The fruit is .seized nervously, 

 .sometimes rudely, by the fingers. 



•A paper read at the convention of the Que- 

 bec Pomologioal Society held at Macdonald Col- 

 lege, last month. , 



squeezed too hard, and then goes to the 

 poor stock and with it on the ground 

 often go the fruit buds, which are the 

 hope of the next crop. 



The fruit dealer's men care not for the 

 future of the orchard, as the orchard is 

 not theirs, and when they leave it void 

 of fruit, you oftentimes can behold the 

 soil strewn with fruit buds, broken 

 branches and even boughs violently torn 

 off the trees. Thus mutilated, bruised 

 and weakened, how can the tree win the 

 battle it has to fight every day and every 

 season against insects, parasites, dis- 

 eases, or the influences of the weather? 



It is important, therefore, that the 

 grower should limit the acreage of the 

 contemplated orchard to the sum of 



The younger orchard at La Trappe 

 comprises two varieties of apples, — 

 Wealthy and Ben Davis. In one day we 

 picked and packed eighty-seven barrels 

 of No. I Wealthy apples, and another 

 day, eighty barrels of Ben Davis, not 

 even using a table to grade the fruit ; 

 whilst with the same staff in the old or- 

 chard, it is a heavy task to get out 

 thirty barrels a day. 



From this, and other facts, I conclude 

 that in this province our aim must not be 

 to secure gigantic trees but simply med- 

 ium-sized trees, and to care for them so 

 that they will give the maximum of 

 their producing ability before they grow 

 too old, too large, and too tall, and be- 

 fore they give smaller fruits. When they 



Perdrigon Plum Trees at the Oka AgricoItDfal Institute 



Professor Reynaud, the President-Elect of the Quebec Pomological Society, stands in foreground 



competent labor he supposes he will be 

 able to dispose of when the trees have 

 grown tall. 



Young trees generally bear larger 

 fruits. The Yellow Transparent apple 

 trees illustrate this fact, at least in the 

 orchard I have charge of. As they 

 grow old, their fruit grows proportion- 

 ately smaller, and is therefore less sale- 

 able. So, I consider that it is not busi- 

 ness-like to keep old Yellow Transparent 

 trees. The same may be said of a few 

 other varieties, and although proper fer- 

 tilizers can remedy the evil, at lea.st to a 

 certain extent, the tendency to give 

 small fruit remains with the old tree. 



With youiig trees not only is the fruit 

 larger, and, in consequence, more fit 

 for the best market, but the picking is 

 easier and costs far less. No long 

 ladders and encumbrances are necessary 

 and the work is swiftly, easily and pro- 

 perly done. 



begin to do so, we can have their place 

 taken in the orchard by a younger and 

 stronger generation of fruit trees. 



Mr. Craig told us last year that he 

 had seen in Missouri a 2,000-acre peach 

 orchard, and he added that in the same 

 district apple and peach trees lived very 

 few years, thus compelling the proprietor 

 to keep busy renewing the plantation. 

 Sooner or later we shall have to do the 

 same, on account of the scarcity of 

 labor at the time of picking and packing. 

 The same gentleman al.so told us that at 

 Grimsby, peaches, plums and smaller 

 fruits have now taken the place of ap- 

 ples. It would be interesting to inves- 

 tigate this in order to know whether the 

 difficulty of picking apples from large 

 trees has not had something to do with 

 this change. 



USE ORDINARY SIZED VARIETIES 



How can one obtain an orchard of 

 only fair-sized trees? There are two 



