Gfce  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
515 
Renovating  Old  Apple  Trees 
Value  ok  the  Veterans. — So  much 
has  been  said  and  written  on  this  sub¬ 
ject  that  there  would  seem  little  more 
to  say.  yet  we  find  many  farmers  finite 
ignorant  of  the  possibilities  of  an  old 
apple  tree,  while  others  perhaps  place 
too  much  value  on  such  a  tree.  Person¬ 
ally,  I  would  not  think  of  giving  up  an 
old  apple  tree,  provided  it  were  of  some 
desirable  variety  and  not  affected  with 
blight.  Old  stubs  of  trees  carefully 
pruned,  often  grow  fine  crops  of  fruit  for 
years,  while  au  apparently  thrifty  tree  of 
younger  years  may  succumb  to  the  blight 
in  one  Summer’s  time.  In  our  work  of 
renovating  old  apple  trees  f my  partner 
and  I  )  for  the  farmers  of  tin*  community 
we  are  more  and  more  convinced  by  re¬ 
sults  attained  that  many  of  these  old  and 
apparently  worn-out  trees  can  be  re¬ 
claimed  at  a  reasonable  cost.  True,  some 
will  die.  but  enough  of  them  will  gen¬ 
erally  ‘‘come  back”  to  pay  costs  and  a 
good  profit  besides. 
Errors  in  Orcharding. — Much  has 
been  done  in  the  last  few  years  towards 
making  over  these  old  orchards;  enough, 
in  fact,  to  prove  the  profitableness  of  the 
operation  i.n  general  when  properly  done. 
Yet  there  arc  still  thousands  of  those 
trees  all  over  the  country  in  a  neglected 
condition.  Often  the  trees  in  these  old 
on *hartl.s  were  planted  too  close,  and  al¬ 
most  always  they  were  allowed  to  grow 
too  thick  from  the  very  start.  The  low¬ 
er  branches  are  often  dead,  having  been 
actually  choked  to  death.  When  any 
pruning  has  been  done  at  all  only  the 
dead  limbs  and  sprouts  or  “suckers”  are 
cut  out.  while  the  bearing  twigs  and 
branches  are  allowed  to  grow  more  and 
more  dense.  The  trees  may  hear  some 
fruit,  but  it.  is  of  poor  quality  except  at 
the  extreme  top.  out  of  reach  of  the 
longest  ladder  or  climbing  capacity  of  the 
average  apple  picker,  No  wonder  the 
old  trees  are  considered  as  almost  worth¬ 
less  except  for  shade. 
Tire  Work  of  Renovation. — Last 
season  we  were  called  to  the  orchard  of 
a  young  farmer  who  had  about  35  of 
these  old  landmarks  on  his  newly  pur¬ 
chased  farm.  The  orchard  had  been  pro¬ 
ducing  about  75  bushels  of  Winter  ap¬ 
ples  in  a  season  for  some  years  past.  A 
young  orchard  bad  been  set.  and  as  the 
farmer  did  not  care  to  climb  so  high 
after  bis  apple  crop,  he  decided  to  have 
them  dishorned,  “kill  or  cure.”  As  is 
our  practice,  we  cut  out  the  high  tops, 
leaving  all  lower  branches  that  were 
ali.vo,  and  an  abundance  of  sprouts.  A 
rope  is  first  fastened  to  a  high  branch, 
then  while  one  saws  off  the  high  top 
(at  a  limb  “going  out”  if  possible)  the 
other  stands  on  t lie  ground  operating  the 
rope.  In  this  way  the  heavy  top  can  be 
guuled  almost  at  will  without  breaking 
down  any  of  the  lower  branches.  It  is 
not  expected  that  these  wounds  so  high 
up  will  ever  heal  over.  In  fact  they  will 
not  do  it,  but  will  doubtless  need  to  he 
cut  shorter  in  time.  The  idea  is  simply 
to  give  growing  stimulus  to  the  sprouts 
about  the  center  of  the  tree. 
Results  ok  the  Work. — 1 The  farmer 
mentioned  had  no  expectation  of  harvest¬ 
ing  an  apple  crop  from  his  dishorned 
trees  the  first  season.  To  his  surprise 
he  realized  nearly  three  times  the  quan¬ 
tity  of  Winter  apples  (about  200  bush¬ 
els)  besides  apples  for  seven  barrels  of 
cider.  The  total  cost  of  pruning  and 
spraying  this  orchard  was  about  $20  the 
first  year.  lie  realized  about  four  times 
this  amount  for  his  crop  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  low  price  of  apples  last  season 
(about  40  cents  the  bushel).  This  year 
the  trees  were  again  pruned,  thinning 
out  and  heading  back  the  sprouts  on 
which  so  much  depends,  and  cutting  out 
broken  limbs  of  which  there  were  a 
number,  the  trees  having  borne  so  heavi¬ 
ly.  We  informed  this  man  that  the  test¬ 
ing  ti,mc  for  his  dishorned  trees  had  not 
yet  come.  The  next  few  years  will  tell 
the  tale.  There  is  little  doubt  hut  that 
some  of  the  trees  will  die.  Rut  there  is 
just  as  much  reason  to  believe  that  most 
of  them  will  actually  in  a  measure  he 
rejuvenated  and  should  hear  profitable 
crops  of  fruit  for  years  to  couie.  This  is 
not  an  exceptional  case.  We  could  cite 
similar  incidents.  We  know  of  few 
where  proper  dishorning  has  not 
proven  satisfactory,  but  too  severe  prun¬ 
ing  sometimes  causes  the  death  of  the 
entire  tree.  It  is  better  to  do  this  dis¬ 
horning  gradually  -  cutting  back  a  few  of 
the  larger  limbs  each  year. 
Cost  ok  the  Work. — Tim  cost  of  dis¬ 
horning  should  not  exceed  50  cents  the 
tree  and  may  he  less.  Subsequent  an¬ 
nual  primings  should  he  considerably  less. 
Most  farmers  can  learn  to  do  this  work 
themselves,  hut  the  operation  should  not 
be  attempted  without,  being  thoroughly 
understood.  It  will  lie  understood  that 
we  recommend  this  kind  of  treatment 
only  for  old  neglected  apple  trees.  Trees 
which  have  been  properly  pruned  from 
planting  time,  trees  which  have  been 
planted  far  enough  apart  and  kept  from 
forming  a  dense  top,  will  never  need  to  be 
subjected  to  such  a  severe  pruning  treat¬ 
ment.  All  apple  trees  young  nr  old, 
should  be  gone  over  each  year  with  saw 
and  pruning  shears  so  that  not  so  much 
need  be  taken  out  at  one  cutting.  It  is 
difficult  to  convince  some  farmers  that 
they  are  growing  trees  for  apples  and 
not  for  wood.  They  imagine  it  takes  a 
dense  growth  of  twigs  and  foliage  to 
produce  a  big  crop  of  apples.  Those 
same  farmers  would  laugh  at  the  propo¬ 
sition  that  if  a  full  stand  of  corn  will 
produce  a  full  crop,  a  double  stand  will 
produce  a  double  crop  [  Yet  apples  are 
much  like  corn  in  this  respect.  It  is 
surprising  to  most  people  just  how  little 
branch  and  twig  it  takes  for  a  tree  to 
produce  big  crops  of  big  red  apples. 
Pennsylvania.  DAVID  plank. 
Potato  Seed  from  Blighted  Vines 
Wintering  The  Disease. — It  is  gen¬ 
erally  conceded  now  that  the  disease 
known  as  “late  blight”  anil  “rot  blight,” 
is  carried  over  the  Winter  in  a  dormant 
state  within  the  tubers  in  storage,  also 
within  tubers  left  in  the  soil  which  un¬ 
der  some  conditions  and  in  many  sections 
are  not  frozen  during  the  Winter.  It  is 
also  known  that  the  same  fungus  which 
causes  “blighting”  of  the  foliage  of  the 
potato  has  its  seeds  or  spores  carried  into 
the  soil  by  rains,  where  they  come  in  cou- 
tac-t  with  the  tubers,  germinate  and  grow 
on  them  the  same  as  on  the  leaves.  As 
a  result  of  this  growth  we  have  first 
“soft-rot”  in  the  field  and  second  “dry- 
rot”  in  storage.  Unfortunately  for  the 
grower  of  potatoes  who  has  to  send  north 
for  his  seed,  the  storage  temperature  is 
not  always  such  Unit  all  the  affected  tu¬ 
bers  are  destroyed  by  “dry-rot.”  As  a 
result  next  Spring  when  the  potatoes  are 
cut  for  seed  the  close  observer  will  find 
one  side  of  part  of  the  tubers  showing 
discolored,  sometimes  shrunken,  spots  un¬ 
der  the  skin,  which  contain  the  dormant 
plant  (mycelium)  of  the  blight.  Under 
favorable  conditions  of  lie, -it  ami  moisture 
such  affected  tubers  used  for  seed,  rot  in 
the  ground  before  they  can  sprout. 
A  Question  ok  Post. — Hence  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  New  Jersey  and 
Long  Island  growers,  who  buy  all  or 
nearly  all  their  seed  potatoes  each  year, 
if  one  could  get  seed  potatoes,  that  were 
otherwise  healthy,  from  sections  in  the 
North  where  “blight”  did  not  occur,  at 
even  a  slight  advance  in  price  over  what 
they  could  he  purchased  for  in  sections 
where  “blight”  was  prevalent  I  would 
buy  the  high-priced  seed.  But,  if  the 
price  of  seed  from  sections  where  “blight” 
did  not  occur  was  exorbitant  I  would 
buy  the  cheaper  seed  and  proceed  as  fol¬ 
lows:  First,  I  should  get  Seed  ns  early 
as  possible  and  likewise  get  the  ground 
ready  for  planting  just  as  early  as  safe 
to  plant  in  my  section.  Second,  as  a 
general  precaution  against  seal)  and 
black-leg  I  would  soak  the  potatoes  in 
formaldehyde  solution,  prepared  as  fol¬ 
lows,  one  pint  of  40%  formaldehyde  to 
30  gallons  of  water,  after  which  (lie 
seed  would  be  cut  while  still  wet  and 
dusted  with  fine  ground  sulphur  (flour 
of  sulphur).  The  sulphur  aids  in  drying 
the  seed,  at  same  time  the  moisture  from 
the  soaking  makes  more  sulphur  adhere 
to  the  seed  pieces. 
Planting. --The  third  and  last  act 
will  be  to  get  the  cut  seed  planted  just 
about  as  fast  as  cut,  planting  from  two 
to  three  inches  deep.  We  should  reniein- 
(Continued  on  page  521) 
Dibble’s  Russet 
the  best  main  crop  white  potato  yielded  right  here  in  Western  New 
York  last  year  over  300  bushels  per  acre,  where  other  kinds  were  a 
failure,  One  of  our  customers  sold  over  1.200  bushels  from  4  acres  for 
$  1 ,320.00,  where  crops  on  adjoining  farms  using  home  grown  seed  pro¬ 
duced  less  than  75  bushels  per  acre. 
This  advertisement  is  written  for  the  benefit  of  those  farmers  who 
through  blight  or  disease  last  year  lost  their  crop  and  must  buy  new 
seed  and  Dibble’s  Russet  is  the  kind  to  plant  on  your  farm  if  you 
want  to  grow  the  best  potato  you  ever  grew. 
Dibble’s  Russet  is  the  best  potato  we  ever  grew  on  the  Dibble 
Farms  outyicLling  other  varieties  grown  alongside  around  100  bushels 
per  acre.  We  introduced  Dibble’s  Russet  four  years  ago  and  have 
sold  over  30,000  barrels  direct  to  our  customers  over  1,000  of  whom 
have  written  us — “Russets  were  the  best  variety  we  ever  grew,”  over 
100 — “They  were  blight  and  scab  proof”  and  over  50 — “They  outyield- 
cd  other  varieties  grown  alongside  over  two  to  one.” 
Dibble’s  Russet  grow  a  strong,  magnificent  spreading  vine,  foliage 
dark  green  and  more  Blight  resistant  than  any  other  variety  in  culti¬ 
vation.  The  tubers  are  round  to  oblong,  netted  skin,  pure  white  flesh 
of  most  excellent  quality.  One  of  our  customers  sold  a  car  load  to 
a  leading  New  York  Restaurant,  then  a  second  and  finally  a  third  at 
10c.  per  bushel  above  the  highest  New  York  City  prices. 
At  tli is  writing  we  have  in  store 
10,000  Bushels 
of  choice,  medium  sized  tubers  saved  from  fields  that  were 
Absolutely  Free  From  Blight 
and  offer  them  as  follows  as  long  as  stock  lasts. 
$4.00  per  bbl.— lO  bbls.  $37.50 
If  in  sacks  holding  the  same  quantity,  25c.  less  per  package. 
Do  Not  Pay  “Fancy  Prices” 
Buy  Direct — Save  Money 
,  We  also  have  full  stocks  of  Early  Ohios,  the  best  extra  early  potato 
Irish  Cobbler,  the  Lest  pure  white  early  and  a  dozen  more,  early,  in¬ 
termediate  and  late  and  our  prices  are  right  as  we  ship  “from  our 
Farms  to  Yours.” 
We  Are  Headquarters  For  Seed  Potatoes 
Oats,  Corn,  Alfalfa,  Clover  and  Grass  Seed,  Peas,  Vetch,  Rape,  etc., 
northern  grown  for  northern  Farmers,  hardy,  acclimated  and  full  of 
vigor. 
Dibble’s  Farm  Seed  Catalog- 
Hie  loading  strictly  Farm  Seed  Book  ol  the  year  gives  a  full  descriotion  of  Dibble's 
Kusset,  over  a  score  oi  photo  engravings  and  a  hundred  testimonials  proving  con- 
titIo? r- SEEDS  are  alt  we  claim  and  MORE.  DIBBLE'S  CATALOG 
DIBBLE  S  NEW  BOOK  ON  ALFALFA  CULTURE  and  12  SAMFLE  PACKAGES  OF 
DIBBLE'S  FARM  SEEDS  FOR  TESTING  FREE.  Ask  for  your”  now.  0F 
Northern  Grown  From  Pedi¬ 
gree  Stocfy  Seed,  Frequently 
Produce  Bumper  Crops  When 
Others  Fail 
Address  Edward  F.  Dibble  Seedgrower 
Box  B,  Honeoye  Falls,  N.  Y. 
Nearly  2, GOO  acres  in  the  Dibble  Farms 
A  Crop  Worth  Harvesting 
Dibble 
eed 
J 
s 
Potatoes 
