282 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1910 



How to Make a Good Beginning 



By W. H. Jenkins, New York 



THERE can be no question about the desira- 

 bility of growing all the best fruits adapted 

 to one's locality when making a home where one 

 expects to live many years. And it is better to have 

 a surplus than a shortage, for if there is no need to 

 sell fruit to enlarge the income, there is no small 

 pleasure to be had from giving to neighbors and 

 friends fruits of a higher quality than they can buy. 

 Also, there can be no question as to the necessity 

 of growing one's own fruit in order to get the best, 

 One can seldom buy the highest quality of apples, 

 Spitzenburg or Newton Pippin, fully and beautifully 

 colored, grown on trees so pruned as to let in the 

 sunshine all around them, and left on the trees until 

 ripe, then picked without bruising, wrapped in 

 paper, or packed between layers of paper in boxes 

 so the apples retain their natural flavor until 



Allow room for future growth when planting out 

 orchard fruits. Clover is the best soiling crop 



qnmmer. The large commercial grower cannot 

 grow and ship fruits so that the consumer can have 

 them at their best. 



To make a mistake in planting trees is not only 

 very disappointing, but also expensive. It is because 

 of the losses from such mistakes, and some successes 

 on my own place, that I feel I can state some 

 facts about orcharding that will help others. My 

 experience goes back for more than thirty years. 

 When a boy of fifteen I set the first strawberry bed 

 in my locality, and began to plant all the fruit on 

 the old homestead farm, and this work was continued 

 when I moved to my little village farm later in life. 



I now know that the way to begin in rightly 

 establishing an orchard of a considerable number 

 of trees and a garden of small fruits, is to start a 

 private or home nursery on the place, planting one- 

 year-old trees purchased of a commercial nursery, 

 and also propagate small fruits. One should have 

 some knowledge of trees and plants and a certain 

 amount of skill in handling them to get the most 

 out of such a nursery, but still it is the right way to 

 begin even without such knowledge. The plot 

 selected for the nursery should be good corn ground, 

 have good drainage, and a fairly rich clay loam. 



Before buying stock study varieties. Ascertain 

 what are the varieties of the highest quality that are 

 thriving well in your own or in a similar locality. 

 Sometimes the best information can be obtained 

 from the State College of Agriculture, or Experiment 

 Station. My plan was to make up a list of fruits 

 which I knew from experience or observation was 



adapted to southeastern New York. This list was 

 submitted to and approved by the State College 

 which added a few new varieties. 



It may be best to purchase some varieties on their 

 own roots, while others are weak growers 

 unless grafted. The most successful orchardists 

 generally buy strong-growing apple stocks, like the 

 Northern Spy, and top-work them with the varieties 

 desired. The Lombard plum stocks are purchased, 

 and top-worked or budded with choice varieties 

 that are slow growers. One should learn to bud 

 and graft trees. Set the one-year-old trees in 

 nursery rows in the spring, cultivate them like a crop 

 of corn all summer, and transplant to permanent 

 positions when two or three years old. Buy plants 

 of small fruits, in lots of 50 or 1,000 and plant 

 them in the spring, in well-prepared propagating 

 beds. I find it best to do all planting and trans- 

 planting as early in the spring as possible. 



Two important subjects to be studied are soils 

 and locations. Several years ago a neighbor and 

 myself each purchased a lot of Japan plums, from 

 the same nurseryman and at the same time. I 

 planted trees on low, rich soil along the brook, 

 and my neighbor planted his trees on an elevation 

 where there was good air drainage. I gave my trees 

 the best of care and they grew rapidly for a few years, 

 then they began to die, and now not one is left. 

 But my neighbor has a splendid bearing orchard of 

 Japan plums! Peach trees that winter killed on 

 my low land are doing fairly well in the plum orchard 

 where the temperature goes 20 degrees below zero 

 in winter. Experience has taught me to set my 

 trees and grape vines on the elevated portions of my 

 place, in well drained fairly rich soil, and not to 

 force their growth too much. 



My experience with dwarf trees has taught me 

 to plant them only for garden culture. I would 

 always plant standard trees if I could give them 

 sufficient room to grow and develop. The dwarfs 

 are best only for close planting in rich soil and the 

 trees should be as well fertilized and cultivated as 

 large cabbages. 



One advantage of the home nursery is that the 

 soil of the orchard can be prepared while the trees 

 for it are growing. Safe advice cannot be given 

 about fertilizing without knowing the soil in which 

 the orchard is to be planted and its needs, but this 

 I do know : that trees and all plants grow best in a 

 clover sod. If the clover grows well, I know the soil 

 is right for the trees. In no way can the soil be 

 fertilized as cheaply, and put in as good mechanical 

 condition, as by plowing under a one or two-year- 

 old clover sod. Where live stock is kept, the best 

 way of fertilizing the soil of the orchard, both 

 before and after planting the trees, is to reinforce 

 stable manure by using ground South Carolina 

 phosphate rock in the stable as an absorbent* and 

 applying all to the orchard without waste. This 

 should sometimes be supplemented with wood ashes, 

 or potash in some form, but the appearance of the 

 trees generally indicates their needs. • 



The number of trees or plants necessary for the 

 family fruit garden will, of course, depend on the 

 needs of the family and the size of the place, but 

 one to three trees of all the varieties named is not 

 too much for the average family, as all trees do not 

 bear every year. I find that one-half an acre of 

 the small fruits is not too much, as there should be 

 room for horse cultivation. 



Here is my list of proved varieties for South- 

 Eastern New York: 



Apples — Northern Spy, Tompkins King, 

 Mcintosh Red, Jonathan, Spitzenburg, Sour 

 Bough, Maiden Blush, Grimes Golden, Seek-No- 

 Further, Roxbury. 



Pears — Clapp Favorite, Barlett, Seckel, Anjou, 

 Bosc. 



Plums — Bradshaw, Reine Claude, Shropshire 

 Damson, Falleburg. 



Cherries — Early Richmond, Montmorency, 

 English Morrello, and, where the sweet cherries 

 thrive, Windsor. 



Grapes — Moore Diamond, Winchell, Worden 

 Brighton, Delaware, Concord, Niagara. 



Raspberry — June (from the Geneva Experi- 

 ment Station, Geneva, N. Y.), Cuthbert, Golden 

 Queen. 



Black Caps — Gregg, Kansas. 



Blackberries — Eldorado, Snyder, Taylor, 

 Rathburn. 



Currants — Perfection, Fay, Wilder. 



Gooseberries — Downing, Pearl, Keepsake. 



Strawberries — Brandywine, Wm. Belt, Mar- 

 shall, Sample, Bederwood. 



Apples for Amateurs 



N. B. White, Mass. 



YEARS ago, when a man set out an orchard, 

 he hardly expected to live to eat apples from 

 it. Orchards were at that time neglected; they 

 had no care, and it required many years of struggle 

 to get the trees into bearing condition. But the 

 culture of the apple, as well as all other farm prod- 

 ucts, has been greatly improved. 



ADVANTAGES OF LOW-HEADED TREES 



About twenty years ago I planted out, for bud- 

 ding, 1,000 two-year-old apple stocks. When the 

 budding season came around, other work prevented 

 its being done, and the next year it was the same. 

 As the trees were getting rather large to bud, I 

 decided to let them grow up and fruit, and see what 

 I would get. Some trees commenced to fruit at 

 eight years of age, others at nine and ten years. 

 From the 1 ,000 trees four were worthy of propaga- 

 tion — an early sweet, a fall subacid, a dark red 

 winter sweet, and a winter apple that very much 

 resembles the Gravenstein, which I have named 

 Winter Gravenstein. 



I claim to be the originator of the low head for 

 apple trees, and published a statement to this effect 



A perfect apple is a source of some pride to the 

 grower — and we can all have them 



