46 



SOME SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THE MANAGEMENT 

 OF ORCHARDS. 



H. P. Gould, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture 



In the management of orchards we hke to think we are pro- 

 gressive and modern in our methods and up-to-date, blazing the 

 way along new trails. For quite a good many years now I have 

 been talking orchard management at horticultural societv meetings 

 and other similar places and I have been thinking all the time that 

 I was advocating modern practices to meet modern conditions. 

 However, listen to this: "But the misfortune is. that too frequent- 

 ly after orchards are planted and fenced,, th.ey have seldom any 

 more care bestowed upon them. Bough.- are all'jwed to hang 

 dangling to the ground, their heads are so loaded with woud as 

 to be almost impervious to sim and air. and they are left to be ex- 

 hausted by moss and injured by cattle, etc." 



Doesn't that sound very much like a description of some of 

 the present day conditions? And again: "The feelings of a lover 

 of improvement can scarcely be expressed on observing the almost 

 universal inattention paid to the greater number of our orchards, 

 and that people who go to considerable expense in planting and es- 

 tablishing them, afterwards leave them to the rude hand of nature ; 

 as if the art and ingenuity of man availed nothing, or that they mer- 

 ited no further care." 



A'erily. a repetition of much that is said about many orchards, 

 of the present day. But if modern conditions are thus represented 

 to any extent, somewhat ancient conditions are also portrayed in 

 the same language for it is thus that old Bernard ]\IAIahon vrote 

 more than a hundred years ago in his "American Gardeners" Calen- 

 der"' which Avas published in 1806. It is interesting to note in pa-s- 

 ing that this is probably tne hrst distinctively American book relat- 

 ing to gardening and fruit growing that was published in this 

 country. 



The statements I have quoted above therefore apparently rep- 

 resent common conditions with reference to the orchards at a very 

 early day. Unfortunately such conditions have persisted to a 

 greater or less extent to the pre-ent time. 



It necessarily follows then that there is nothing new or modern 

 in the oft-repeated observations of the present day relative to our 

 neglected orchards. There have been such orchards from the be- 

 ginning and there doubtless will be such ones when the end of time 

 comes. 



I have been wondering a good deal lateh- what real progress 

 we have made anywav in the management of orchards during the 

 l^resent period of rapid extension of the fruit industry. 



