years ago. ‘The trees were mostly Jonathan, 
Gano, Rome Beauty and Winesap, the 
Jonathan exceeding all others, with some 
Jeniton, Willow-twig, Black-twig, and 
Grimes. The Rome Beauty trees came 
into bearing when planted four years; the 
next year all other varieties came into bearing 
except Black-twig. I kept an account of 
my expenses and labor, and found that it 
cost about $200 an acre to bring the trees 
into bearing. After that, it has cost me $25 
an acre per year for pruning, cultivating, 
spraying, irrigating, and other necessary 
care.” 
Like every Easterner I was impressed 
with the quick returns from this Western 
apple orchard. ‘‘Do you mean to say that 
four years after planting you took a profitable 
crop from your trees?” I asked. 
“That first crop was large enough to pay 
for all expenses up to that time. I also 
had revenue from squashes, grown between 
the trees the first three years.” I recalled 
certain Northern Spy orchards in New 
York that are over fifteen years old, and 
have not yet borne a paying crop. The 
climate in this Western country is clearly 
conducive to early bearing, and yet there 
is no evidence that this means a shorter life 
of the trees. 
It is easy to see that this precocious 
fruiting gives the Colorado man a great 
advantage over the New Yorker; his money 
is tied up in fruitless trees but half as long. 
While the humid climate of the East is 
unfavorable for early fruiting, our pro- 
gressive fruit growers are now beginning 
to force the trees to bear early, by propa- 
gating from bearing trees, rather than from 
the nursery row, and by summer pruning, 
root pruning, and other means of checking 
wood-growth. But summer pruning and 
root pruning are artificial and dangerous 
means of inducing early bearing, and not to 
be compared with this spontaneous precocity 
due to a dry climate. 
Apple tree used as filler and now girdled. It will 
be cut out after bearing the extra heavy crop 
induced by girdling 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
Apple trees here bear practically every 
year, although some years not so heavily 
as others. There never is an “off” year, 
even with a variety like Baldwin, which 
is usually a biennial bearer in the East. 
Irrigation is done five or six times during 
the season, applying from ten to fifteen inches. 
The first irrigation is given as early in the 
spring as is practicable, always before the 
trees bloom. The second is given immedi- 
ately after the petals have dropped; and 
two weeks later another. If the season is 
dry, water is given again, but the aim is 
not to irrigate after July 15th, unless the 
season is very dry and more water is needed 
to swell out the fruit. The last irrigation 
is given in November, after the trees have 
shed their leaves and are dormant. This 
fills the ground and wood of the trees with _ 
water, so that they go through the winter 
better. Water costs $2.50 per acre a year. 
The cultivation of an irrigated orchard 
Poplar windbreak protecting the apple orchard from 
severe winds which might blow off the fruits 
does not differ materially from the cultiva- 
tion of an orchard in the humid region. 
In early spring, the orchard is plowed and 
fitted. Sometimes the plowing is done in 
the fall, but always once a year. After 
every irrigation, which makes more or less 
of a crust on the surface, thus favoring the 
evaporation of water from the soil, the land 
is cultivated; just as the careful fruit grower 
of the East tills after a heavy rain has beaten 
down the soil in his orchard. Mr. Sweitzer 
prefers that most popular of all orchard 
tools, the spring-toothed harrow, for part 
of his tillage, following with the spike- 
toothed harrow. A “float” is often used 
for finishing an extra good job. 
I was curious to know if the word “fer- 
tilizer” had a place in the vocabulary of 
this fruit grower, whose trees are on virgin 
land. It had not. A little manure is used 
occasionally. No cover crops are grown 
to plow under. No commercial fertilizers 
are bought. A neighboring grower said 
to me, ‘Our virgin soil is of inexhaustible 
fertility.’ I told him that the pioneer 
farmer of Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan 
made the same remark fifty years ago. 
JUNE, 1908 
Growing squashes between young apple trees for 
quick returns. Note the peach “fillers’’ 
Now they study fertilizer tags and soil 
analyses. So will these people, fifty years 
hence; but only a few of them are far-sighted 
enough now to foresee that inevitable result. 
Pruning must be done skilfully in this 
country. The old-time apple orchard of 
the East, with trees headed six feet high, 
is entirely out of date in the West as in the 
East. Apple trees are here headed twenty- 
four to thirty inches high. The first two 
years the tree is cut back, to make a strongly 
crotched and low-branched tree. After 
that no heading back is done; the pruning 
consists in merely thinning out crowding 
branches. There is one exception to this, 
however, in the Winesap, which Mr. Sweitzer 
prefers to head back every year. “Always 
head back to a branch,” he said. “I have 
seen trees ruined because this was not done; 
they kill back and sucker badly.” 
Thousands of trees are ruined in the East 
every year by rotten heart, due to a wound 
made in pruning not having been protected. 
The climate in western Colorado is so dry 
that even large wounds will heal over per- 
fectly without decay. There are no wounds 
to paint. 
The trees in Mr. Sweitzer’s orchard were 
so uniformly thrifty and clean looking, that 
I asked if the climate is unfavorable to the 
ravages of pests, but I was told: “We have 
to fight apple pests here fully as much 
as you do in the East. I know that many 
Eastern fruit growers think that in this 
new country fruit trees are free from enemies, 
that they grow spontaneously, without 
protection; but as a matter of fact, I have 
to expend more in keeping my trees free 
from pests than the average fruit grower in 
the East. 
“Wooly aphis is the worst. Eastern 
growers really know nothing of this pest; 
they occasionally see the cottony form on 
the branches, but the root form does little 
damage. Here it will kill trees in a few 
years, if not fought. We handle it in two 
ways; by killing the branch form with the 
lime-sulphur spray in winter, which also 
kills the green aphis, another very serious 
pest; and by putting tobacco dust on the 
roots. ‘The soil is removed around the base 
of the tree, exposing the main roots on 
a 
