IT WAS now the season for me to bustle about, 

 fix up my land, and get in my crops. I ex- 

 amined it more carefully, walked over it daily, 

 and made myself thoroughly acquainted with it. 

 As before mentioned, it had been utterly neglected 

 for a whole season, and was grown up with enor- 

 mous weeds. These, after a day or two of drizzling 

 rain, when the seed-vessels were so wet as not to 

 allow their contents to scatter, I mowed off, 

 gathered into several large heaps, and burned, thus 

 getting rid of millions of pestiferous seeds. Then 

 I purchased ploughs, including a subsoiler, a 

 harrow, cultivator, and other tools. One acre of 

 the whole was in clover, another was set aside as 

 being occupied by the dwelling-house, garden, 

 stable, and barnyard; but much the larger half of 

 that acre was allowed for garden purposes. This 

 left me just 9 acres for general fruit and vegetable 

 culture. I hired a man to plough them up, he 

 finding his own team, and another to follow him 

 in the furrow with my subsoiler. The first went 

 down 10 inches, and the latter 10 more. 



Old Time vs. Modern Ploughing 



NOW, this business of deep subsoil ploughing is 

 a matter of indispensable value in all agri- 

 culture, but especially so in the planting of an 

 orchard. No tree can thrive as it ought unless 

 the earth is thoroughly and deeply loosened for the 

 free expansion of the roots. If I could have 

 ploughed 2 feet deep, it would have been all the 

 better. The first plough was a tough, forked stick, 

 of which one prong served as a beam, while the 

 other dug the earth as a coulter. Of course the 

 ploughing was only scratching. It would have been 

 preposterous to expo 1 the ploughman oi llesiod'sor 

 of Virgil's time to turn up and mellow the soil to a 

 depth of 15 inches. Down to the present age, 

 ploughing was inevitably a shallow affair. But iron 

 ploughs, steel ploughs, subsoil ploughs, have changed 

 all this. It is as easy to-day to mellow the earth to 

 the depth of 2 feet, as it was a century ago to 

 turn a sward to the depth of 6 inches. Besides, 

 our trying climate, so different from the moist, 

 milder one of England, Ireland, or even Holland, 

 whence our ancestors emigrated, absolutely requires 

 of us deep ploughing. Drought is our perpetual 

 danger. Most crops are 20 to 60 per cent, short 

 of what they would have been with adequate 

 and seasonable moisture. That moisture exists not 

 only in the skies above, but in the earth beneath 

 our plants. Though the skies may capriciously 

 withhold it, the earth never will, if we provide a 

 rich mellow subsoil, through which the roots can 

 descend for moisture. 



Maintaining Soil Moisture 



THE hotter and dryer the weather, the better 

 our plants will grow, if they have rich, warm 

 earth beneath them, reaching down to and including 

 moisture. We cannot, and we need not, plough 

 so very deep each year to assure this, if the sub- 

 soil is so underdrained that the superabundant 

 moisture of the wet season does not pack it. Under- 

 draining as the foundation, and deep ploughing as 

 the superstructure, with ample manuring and 

 generous tillage, will secure us ample crops, such 

 as any section of our country has rarely seen. Our 

 corn crop should average 70 bushels per acre. 

 Every field should be ready to grow wheat, if 

 required. Every grass lot should be good for 3 

 tons of hay per acre. 



I laid out S200 in the purchase of old, well- 

 rotted stable manure from the city, spread it over 

 the 10 acres, and ploughed up of them I then 

 set out my peach trees on 6 acres, planting them in 

 rows 18 feet apart, and 18 feet asunder in the rows. 



* Copyright, 1905, by Consolidated Retail Booksellers. 



This accommodated 134 to the acre, or 804 in all. 

 These would not be in the way of any other crop, 

 and in three years would be likely to yield a good 

 return. The roots of every tree underwent search- 

 ing scrutiny before it was planted, to see that they 

 harbored no borers. As trees are often delivered 

 from the nursery with worms in them, so many of 

 these were infected. The enemy was killed, and 

 the butt of each tree was then swabbed with com- 

 mon tar, extending from where the roots begin to 

 branch out, about twelve inches up. It is just 

 about there, say between wind and water, at the 

 surface of the ground, where the bark is soft, that 

 in June and September the peach moth deposits 

 her eggs. From these is hatched the worm which 

 kills the tree, unless picked out and destroyed. 



Hunting Out the Peach Borer 



TO perform this searching operation on a thou- 

 sand trees every year, would be laborious and 

 expensive. There would also be great danger of 

 its being imperfectly done, as many worms might 

 escape the search, while the vital power of the 

 tree would be seriously impaired by permitting 

 them to prey upon its bark and juices even for a 

 few months. Prevention would be far cheaper than 

 curing. The offensive odor of the tar will cause 

 the moth to shun the tree and to make her deposit 

 somewhere else; while if any chance to light upon 

 it, they will stick to the tar and there perish, like 

 flies upon a sheet of fly-paper. 



The tar was occasionally examined during the 

 season, to see that it kept soft and sticky; and 

 where any hardening was discovered, a fresh 

 swabbing was applied. The whole operation was 

 really one of very little trouble, while the result was 

 highly remunerative. Thoughtfulness, industry 

 and a little tar, did the business effectually. I 

 believe no nostrum of putting ashes around the 

 butt of a peach tree to kill the worms, or any other 

 nostrum of the kind, is worth a copper. The only 

 sure remedy is prevention. Do not let the worms 

 get in, and there will be no effort needed to get 

 them out. 



I planted none but the rarest and choicest kinds. 

 Economy of a few cents in the price of a tree is no 

 economy at all. It is the best fruit that sells the 

 quickest and pays the highest profit; the best 

 is cheaper for both buyer and seller. 



It is as easy to grow the choicest as the meanest 

 fruit. I have a relative in Ohio who has a peach 

 orchard of 1 1 acres, which has yielded him S5 ,000 

 in a single season, during which peaches were selling 

 in Cincinnati at 25 cents a bushel. It is easy to 

 understand that his orchard would not have pro- 

 duced him that sum at that price. No, it did not. 

 He received $2 a bushel more readily than his 

 neighbors got 25 cents for the. same variety of 

 peaches, and this is how he did it. 



When the peaches had grown as large as a 

 hickory nut. he employed a large force and put on 

 185 days' work in picking off the excess of fruit. 

 More than one half of the fruit then upon the trees 

 was carefully removed. Each limb was taken by 

 hand, and where, within a space of 18 inches, there 

 would be probably 20 peaches, but 6 or 7 of the 

 fairest would be left to ripen. Thus, by carefully 



206 



removing all but the strongest specimens, and 

 throwing all the vigor of the tree into them, the 

 peaches ripen early, and are remarkable for size 

 and excellence of quality. 



But this was labor! Seven months' labor of 

 one man in a small peach orchard ! But be it so — 

 the net profit was between $3,000 and $4,000. 

 If he had neglected his trees, the owner's profits 

 would have been a crop of peaches hardly fit to 

 feed the pigs. I have profited largely by following 

 his example, and will relate my own experience later. 



I intend to be particular touching my peach 

 orchard, as well for the gratification of my own 

 pride, as an incentive to those who cannot be 

 made to believe Ten Acres Enough. My success 

 with it has far outstripped my expectations; and 



1 pronounce a peach orchard of this size, planted 

 and cultivated as it can be, and will be, by an intel- 

 ligent man not essentially lazy, as the sheet anchor 

 of his safety. I was careful to plant none but 

 small trees, because such can be removed from the 

 nursery with greater safety than large ones, while 

 the roots are less multiplied, and thus receive 

 fewer injuries; neither are they liable to be displaced 

 by high winds before acquiring a firm foothold 

 in the ground. Many persons suppose that newly 

 planted trees should be large enough to be out 

 of danger from cattle running among them; but 

 all cattle should be excluded from a young 

 orchard. 



Advantages of Small Trees 



MOREOVER, small trees make a better growth, 

 and are more easily trimmed into proper 

 shape. All experienced horticulturists testify to the 

 superior eligibility of small trees. They cost less at 

 the nursery, less in transportation, and very few fail 

 to grow. One year old from the bud is old enough, 

 and the same, generally, may be said of apples and 

 pears. I dug holes for each tree 3 feet square and 



2 feet deep, and filled in with a mixture of the 

 surrounding topsoil and leached ashes, a half 

 bushel of the latter to each tree. Knowing that 

 the peach tree delights in ashes, I obtained 400 

 bushels from a city soap-works, and am satisfied 

 they were exactly the manure my orchard needed. 

 Every root which had been wounded by the spade 

 in removing the tree from the nursery, was cut off 

 just back of the wound, paring it smooth with a 

 sharp knife. The fine earth was settled around 

 the roots by pouring in water; after which the 

 mixture of earth and ashes was thrown on until 

 the hole was filled, leaving a slight depression 

 round the tree, to catch the rain, and the tree at 

 about the same level it had maintained when 

 standing in the nursery. 



I did not stake up the trees. They were too 

 small to need it; besides I should be all the time 

 on hand to keep them in position. Being a new- 

 comer, I had no straw with which to mulch them, 

 to retain the proper moistuie about the roots, 

 or it would have been applied. But the season 

 turned out to be abundantly showery, and they 

 went on growing from the start. Not a tree was 

 upset by storm or wind, nor did one of them die. 

 I do not think the oldest nurseryman in the country 

 could have been more successful. 



Capital a Farming Essential 



THIS operation made a heavy draft on the small 

 cash capital which I possessed. But small as it 

 was, it was large enough to show that capital is 

 indispensable to successful farming. Had I been 

 without it, my orchard would have been a mere 

 hope instead of a reality, and I might have been 

 compelled to wait for years before feeling rich 

 enough to establish it. But when the work of 

 planting was over, my satisfaction was extreme; 

 and when I saw the trees in full leaf, giving token 

 that the work had been well done, I felt that I had 



