Vol. LX I 
No. 2722. 
NEW YORK, MARCH 29, 1902. 
$1 PER YEAR 
refitting a RENTED ORCHARD. K 
FORTY-YEAR-OLD TREES THAT LOCK THEIR BRANCHES. 
Can They Be Made to Pay? 
The following questions are sent by a reader In 
Ohio: 
An apple orchard of about four acres could. 1 think, be 
rented. The canker-worm has been at work on It for two 
seasons very badly. The orchard may be 40 years old, 
trees planted close, limbs interlocking: trees not very 
large, having had very poor care. We think it a good 
locality for fruit. Could we by spraying, trimming, cut¬ 
ting out every other tree, manuring, etc., make it pay? 
Were such an orchard as described by the reader 
from Ohio upon one’s own land it would prob¬ 
ably be advisable to give it the proposed treat¬ 
ment, but I certainly would hesitate to bestow 
so much time, labor and expense upon another’s 
property unless the outlook for returns was 
exceptionally bright. As the trees are so close¬ 
ly planted as to require the removal of every 
other one, it would be no small task to accom¬ 
plish this alone. At 30x30 feet apart there 
would be 48 trees per acre—102 trees in all. 
This would mean the removal of 96 trees. As 
the orchard has had no care, the remaining 
trees would need a thorough “dressing up.” 
Dead limbs must be removed and thick, scrubby 
heads thinned to admit the air and sunshine. 
The inquirer says that the trees are not very 
large. This would, perhaps, be a point in his 
favor if they were vigorous and in good shape; 
yet, if they stand closely together, and are upon 
fairly fertile soil, it is reasonable to suppose 
that they have grown tall and slender. 1 have 
seen many old trees, under similar conditions, 
whose trunks were branchless to the height ot 
from 10 to 15 feet. Should this be the case the 
labor and expense of gathering the fruit, to say 
nothing of spraying, would be doubled. The 
question of varieties, too, would have a decided 
bearing upon the advisability of attacking such 
a proposition. If the varieties are principally 
standard, reliable Winter apples the chances of 
profit would, of course, be enhanced. The pres¬ 
ence of the canker-worm, in such numbers as 
described, would tend to make the enterprise a 
still more difficult one, and would require a 
“fight to the finish” in order to secure a crop 
and preserve the vigor of the trees. Indeed, 
from the fact that the canker-worm has 
abounded in such force, unchecked, as stated, 
lor the past two seasons, and that the orchard 
has otherwise been neglected, it can only be 
presumed that the vigor of the trees is already, 
in a measure, impaired by two succeeding de¬ 
foliations from this cause. 
As to manuring or fertilizing a four-acre or¬ 
chard upon another’s land I certainly would 
want to be quite well satisfied that the circumstances, 
conditions, varieties, etc., would justify it; and 1 
would require a sufficient and secure time limit to in¬ 
sure against loss of crops through unexpected as well 
as the usual and expected causes. If one has land of 
his own it must be under very extraordinary circum¬ 
stances that he can afford to haul his barnyard ma¬ 
nure upon the ground of his neighbor or enrich it 
with commercial fertilizers purchased with money 
from his own purse. If he be not a land owner it Is 
reasonable to suppose that he will not have the ma¬ 
nure to cover this area unless he buy it in the chemi¬ 
cal form, when the same objections will apply. There 
are so many points to be taken into consideration as 
well as the usual number of problems and difficulties 
to be met, in the production of a paying crop of 
apples, that I doubt whether he could find a conser¬ 
vative fruit grower who would unqualifiedly advise 
him to tackle this problem with confidence of success 
and profit. I have known of orchards 25 to 30 years 
old that were renovated, cultivated and sprayed, and 
afterwards returned a profit of from $30 to $40 an¬ 
nually per acre, upon an average. At least these are 
the figures given by the informant. Upon the other 
hand I know of a 40-year-old orchard that was taken 
out, root and branch, last Winter and the ground 
planted to vegetables. In spite of the severe drought 
I am sure that this particular piece of ground made 
the owner more clear money last season than he had 
obtained from it during the last decade altogether. 
Ohio. F. If. BALLOU. 
COW PEA, SHOWING ROOT NODULES. Fig. 81. See Page 238 
manure over the fine or feeding roots of your trees, 
and before applying ascertain by digging how far 
those feeding roots extend from the body of the trees. 
As this manure decays you get up a bacterial action 
in your soil which will prepare plant food for your 
trees in the best known form, and at the season of 
the year that the tree needs it most to develop strong 
fruit buds that result in perfect fruit the follow¬ 
ing year. 1 should expect the Blue grass to start 
of its own accord, and would use that as a mulch In 
place of manure when established. If the new 
growth on the trees appeared stunted, with a 
good many of the small limbs dead, I would cut 
the top back severely. This will cause new 
sprouts to start out, which will form a new 
head. This method takes longer than the first 
one advised, but in some cases is the only effec¬ 
tive way. Follow this with thorough spraying 
with Bordeaux and Paris-green as advised by 
experiment stations, and the result will be sat¬ 
isfactory. 
Not knowing the varieties, soil, the part of 
Ohio the orchard is situated in, nor the man 
and his qualifications for carrying into practice 
the best principles known to the successful or- 
chardists, I can only make suggestions. If the 
varieties are the standard Winter apples in the 
locality, and the man behind the work up-to- 
date, it will be a reasonably safe investment. I 
would be slow to cut out every other tree if the 
orchard is situated on thin hill land. We have 
plenty of Rome Beauty trees only 20 feet apart 
and they are not too close except on very rich, 
land. Trees growing upright and spreading out 
more require more room, and if the ground is 
in good condition and fairly well supplied with 
humus I would cultivate shallow till July, ami 
sow cow peas to leave on the ground over Win¬ 
ter to catch the falling leaves. I would not 
plow so as to break the roots. If the trees are 
so close and the limbs hang down so a team 
cannot get through to plow and cultivate, 1 
would mulch with grass and whatever is grow¬ 
ing on the ground now, and in the absence of 
a sufficient growth for a good mulch, manure 
or anything will be good. I would prune out 
all the dead limbs and thin out some of the 
thickest places, not cutting off any large live 
limbs nor those that hang down low unless they 
lie on the ground. It is likely there are a good 
many small Branches under the trees that are 
dead, and they must be cut first so as to leave 
the green ones to bear fruit if there is any 
grown. Those low-hanging limbs can be spray¬ 
ed and the fruit thinned and picked to better ad¬ 
vantage than in the tops of the trees. We raise 
just as good fruit close to the ground as on any 
part of the tree. Close planting keeps the ground 
This is certainly a tough proposition, but if the 
trees appear healthy I would treat them as follows, 
with the expectation of making them profitable the 
second year from starting. First cut down every 
other row of trees; trim the dead wood out of the 
remainder. Bear in mind that the trees are a crop 
of themselves, and being planted close evidently in 
this case they have taken the full strength of the soil 
to support their wood growth, leaving a deficiency ot 
plant food properly to develop fruit buds. By cut¬ 
ting out half you increase the root pasturage of the 
remainder, also save one-half of the expense of spray¬ 
ing in material and labor. If you have a supply of 
manure apply it after the fruit buds begin to form; 
soon after July 1 is the correct time, as the micro¬ 
scope shows that the fruit buds begin to form a little 
before this date. The thing to do is to stimulate this 
fruit bud development by applying a coat of coarse 
cool in time of droughts, and the mulch retains mois¬ 
ture so the trees hardly know there has been a 
drought. I have not had much to do with canker- 
worms. We have always routed them in the opening 
of the campaign by spraying with the Bordeaux foi 
the Apple scab and arsenite of soda for the Codling 
moth. As the canker-worms have been bad they must 
be given severe treatment. Arsenate of lead is said 
to be the best to stick to the leaves, but arsenite of 
soda or Paris-green will prevent any damage if ap¬ 
plied early enough and often enougn in sufficient 
doses completely to cover the foliage, but not to have 
so much that the water will gather and run down the 
leaves to wash the poison off. I would use the stand¬ 
ard Bordeaux and arsenite of soda at the rate of a 
pound of arsenic to 300 gallons of water, and arsen¬ 
ate of lead at the rate of three pounds to the 100 gal¬ 
lons, that being a mixture that has sufficient poison 
