184 
The Garden Magazine, May, 1921 
paid ten dollars a week, and had his house and some other 
perquisites. The next man stayed four years, was paid forty 
dollars a month, and received in addition a house, garden stuff, 
firewood, a dozen eggs a week, and sometimes a 
chicken. This is the man that kept the poul- 
try plant going. The third man has 
been on hand for three years, except 
for a winter at a war job. He re- 
ceived three dollars a day the 
first year, then three fifty, 
and last year was paid four 
fifty. That is high wages, 
but Watson’s way of look- 
ing at it is that he’d 
rather have one man at 
four-fifty than two men 
of the two-fifty quality. 
There is no necessary 
orchard work to re- 
quire a man on the 
place through all of the 
winter months. Work 
has to be hunted up. 
The man’s time is partly 
taken up in felling trees 
for lumber and hauling 
logs to the mill, partly in 
cutting cordwood, partly 
in the usual winter tasks in 
an orchard. Permanent 
employment is the price of 
good help. 
T HE system of orchard practice fol- 
lowed is cultivation twice a year; first 
in May or June and again in the late fall. A 
disk harrow is used. In some spots the ground 
is stony, and it is necessary to stir up the soil 
around the trees by hand. Stable manure is 
bought as fertilizer. Forty pounds is used to 
the tree. The ground was limed once, five years ago. 
For five years a horse was hired in summer. This was ex- 
pensive. Two years ago Watson bought a good horse and now 
keeps him on the place all the time. All of the hay required for 
feed is cut on the farm. Some oats are raised, though not 
enough. The problem of horse feed is the principal difficulty 
resulting from horse ownership. Otherwise it is an advantage 
to have the animal available throughout the year. 
T HE first sales of apples came along eight years after the 
first stick of cordwood was cut in the thicket that con- 
stituted the original purchase. The crop was forty bushels. 
The next year the harvest was a hundred and fifty bushels, and 
the past season it was over six hundred bushels. I n other words, 
at the end of ten years from the first clearing of the land the 
Apple trees have returned a crop that completely offsets the 
year’s expense account. 
So far the fruit is commanding a high price, and in all likeli- 
hood it will continue to do so. The orchard is made up of 
dessert apples — not the kind that you buy bv the barrel and put 
away for winter use, but the fruit-stand varieties — Macintosh, 
Delicious, Gravenstein and the like. Much of the 
crop brings four dollars a bushel; some of the 
best, five dollars. This means of course, 
that the fruit must be perfect ; and it is. 
IN RETURN for his outlay 
1 Watson has a well-nigh per- 
fect commercial orchard of approxi- 
mately twelve hundred trees, many of which are now coming into 
profitable bearing. He has an attractive place, well arranged, and 
situated in strategic position with reference to a big city. Scores 
of people in automobiles stop to look at it. It looks good. 
Aside from these tangible things there are some that are 
intangible, but are none the less w'orth while. It is difficult 
even to define them: the pleasure of creating a substantial 
property; the mental stimulation of solving problems; the sus- 
tained interest in a going enterprise — you will understand the 
kind of things that I mean. Watson and his wife have found an 
unusual and a continuous satisfaction in building their place that 
has been worth something to them not measurable in dollars. 
© J.G. SbowtU 
T HE expenditure on the place 
has totaled about fifteen 
hundred dollars a year 
through the ten years since 
the land was bought. This 
includes various improve- 
ments in addition to the 
trees; for example — the 
cabin and the bunga- 
low; a stone w^all along 
the front of the prop- 
erty; a water system, 
including a branch line 
to the highest point in 
the orchard, so that irri- 
gation may be practised 
if desired; lumber for a 
barn ; a garage. Sales of 
small fruits, peaches, and 
apples have helped to foot 
the bill for annual upkeep. 
Doing it over again Watson 
might alter his programme to 
the extent of choosing land 
that could be intercropped to 
better advantage while the 
trees were coming into bear- 
ing. Thus the annual outgo 
would be decreased. But 
it might not be possible to 
do this and at the same time 
secure both location and to- 
pography, which are essentials 
in the future of the place. 
