Vol. LXI. No. 2760. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 20, 1902. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
THE VERGON APPLE ORCHARD. 
OHIO’S CHAMPION OF MOWING AND MULCHING. 
Red Apples in Blue Grass. 
MAN AND ENVIRONMENT.—One mile east of the 
college town of Delaware, Ohio, upon a fertile plateau 
overlooking the valley of the Olentangy, is located 
the famous apple orchard of F. P. Vergon. Suddenly 
turning into view and briskly approaching comes a 
lively little sorrel and an up-to-date buggy carrying 
a hale, jovial, great-hearted Frenchman. Mr. Vergon, 
who takes a certain degree of pride in being a “thor¬ 
oughbred,” came with his parents from France when 
but a small boy. The family settled upon the farm 
where he, at the age of 72 years, still resides. At 
the time of their coming the greater part of the coun¬ 
try, as well as much of the ground upon which the 
city of Delaware is built, was in dense forest. Mr. 
Vergon himself in his younger days bore a prominent 
part in the clearing up of 150 acres of virgin forest 
It was during these earlier experiences that he be¬ 
came interested and impressed with Nature’s plan for 
the maintenance of fertility and the conservation 
of moisture by mulching. No matter how dry the 
season, nor how severely cultivated crops in the clear¬ 
ing suffered from lack of moisture, he was always 
able to find cool, moist soil beneath the thick blanket 
of leaves and leaf mold in the forest, and this in spite 
of the fact that an army of giant trees was daily 
pumping from the earth many tons of water. With 
these truths in mind Mr. Vergon. continued for many 
years breeding Short-horn cattle and, incidentally, 
storing a great supply of fertility in the Blue-grass 
pastures of the farm. 
ORCHARD MANAGEMENT.—It was upon these 
rich pastures of nearly 40 years standing that his 
young orchard was planted, which is now 14 years 
old. The soil is of a loamy nature with a subsoil of 
brash red clay and at considerable depth a stratum 
of shale. The surface of this tableland is gently un¬ 
dulating and is broken only by the abrupt slopes of a 
rather broad, flat-bottomed ravine which affords ex¬ 
cellent frost drainage through the central part of the 
orchard. In planting the trees the dense Blue-grass 
sod is broken only by the excavation of ample holes 
for the roots of the young tree, which is set firm as a 
post at an angle of several degrees toward the south¬ 
west. A mulching of coarse stable manure is applied 
in the Spring, directly after planting, at the rate of a 
wagonload to eight or 10 trees. In Autumn this mulch 
is raked away from the stem of the tree and left in a 
circle about its base. The following Spring the re¬ 
maining litter is again raked up to the trunk of the 
tree and a slightly wider circle spaded up about its 
roots. This new “ring” of tough sod is turned bot¬ 
tom-side up and left in a circle under the “drip” of 
the branches. This is repeated for the first four or 
five years. Mr. Vergon now uses a small mound of 
fine cinders about the stem of the young tree as soon 
as it has become well established, which is usually by 
the second year. He finds the cinders an effectual 
protection from mice. Subsequent culture of his 
young trees is none other than a strict adherence to 
the plan suggested by Nature early in Mr. Vergon’s 
life. The wonderful matted growth of fine Blue grass 
is each season mown and raked up in a circle about 
each tree beneath the drip of its branches. A second 
growth at once takes place, and the surface is again 
promptly covered with a dense luxurious matting 
which lies closely upon the ground during the re¬ 
mainder of the year, and through which a new and 
rampant growth pushes the next Spring. 
NATURE’S PLAN; ITS RESULTS.—It must be 
borne in mind that this method, as practiced by Mr. 
Vergon, was not by any means made necessary by 
rough or untillable land, as tUe entire orchard of 50 
acres, with the exception of the narrow, abrupt slopes 
of the ravine alluded to, is admirably suited for cul¬ 
tivation. With the soil of the orchard protected by a 
thick, spongy fabric of Blue grass, the ground beneath 
the trees kept cool and moist by its clippings and the 
low-headed trees whose branches would soon lie upon 
the mulch, thus shutting out the light and aiding in 
the nitrification of the plant food already in the soil 
as well as in the decay of accumulating matter upon 
its surface, Mr. Vergon thought that he had hit upon 
EASY PICKING IN THE VERGON ORCHARD. Fig. 342. 
the plan of the Creator in caring for the trees. How¬ 
ever, before launching too freely upon his hobby, he 
wrote to the State Experiment Station, asking the 
opinion of a horticultural expert. Prof. Green, ever 
conservative, replied that it was a new thing, but it 
might not be a bad idea to try it. Mr. Vergon did 
try it, it was a good thing, it is constantly proving a 
good thing, and it promises to continue a good thing, 
as the trees are exceptionally healthy and uniform 
and wonderfully productive. Last year the orchard, 
I believe, produced 6,000 bushels, and the greater part 
of the trees were equally heavily loaded this season. 
Additional advantages of low-headed trees, Mr. Ver- 
A LOW-HEADED ROME BEAUTY. Fig. 343. 
gon claims, are the stockier, “better-knit” bodies 
which are never injured by the sun nor molested by 
borers; the “anchoring” of the trees against the 
storm and wind by the fruit-laden branches resting 
upon the mulched earth; the ease of gathering the 
apples—fully one-half of the crop of the 14-year-old 
orchard being picked from the ground (See Fig. 342); 
the facility with which the trees are reached by the 
sprayer, and the saving of nearly all the windfalls 
(not “worm-falls” in Mr. Vergon’s orchard), from 
bruising. So many of the great, smooth apples lie 
upon, near, or within a few feet of the mulch that 
when one is accidentally shaken off, or takes a notion 
to drop, it is not a long, hazardous journey of bumps, 
bruisings and final crushing, but simply a case of 
“please lie over, comrade, and let me plump down and 
rest till market day.” The windfalls are gathered, 
graded and the greater part of them sold as first-class 
fruit. Moreover, as an object lesson on low-heading 
of apple trees, Mr. Vergon has placed thermometers 
here and there under the trees, onfe foot from the 
bodies and in like positions. In comparison with 
high-headed trees he finds that, in the heated season, 
the temperature beneath the “low-down” trees aver¬ 
ages about three degrees cooler than at a like point 
under the higher heads, where sun and air have freer 
access. As a matter of fact this, in a measure, re¬ 
tards the period of maturity—a point worthy of con¬ 
sideration in growing Winter apples. The Rome 
Beauty tree. Fig. 343, is a typical representative of 
his plan of low-heading. The trees in this orchard 
are not pruned much for a few years after planting, 
and then only to preserve a well proportioned and 
evenly “screened” head. True, the little tree, at 
planting, is carefully shaped with the knife and only 
those branches left which will form a well-balanced 
top which must begin within 2 y 2 or three feet from 
the ground. 
FIGHTING ORCHARD PESTS.—It goes without say¬ 
ing, I presume, that in this well-kept orchard spray¬ 
ing is thorough from start to finish. There is a slight 
sprinkling, too, of the San Jos6 scale; but Mr. Ver¬ 
gon, instead of being distressingly alarmed, in the 
Winter, orders a carload of crude petroleum and smil¬ 
ingly deals death and destruction among the “pesky 
little critters.” Not a tree in nearly 2,000 shows the 
least sign of injury from either the scale or the pe¬ 
troleum; and the scale, so far, is having a mighty dis¬ 
couraging existence. A little help from natural ene¬ 
mies, it is thought, would wipe them out of the or¬ 
chard. The truth is that under the watchful eye of 
the aggressive, indomitable young manager, J. C. 
Vergon, “to die is gain” for anything in the way of 
an orchard pest. 
VARIETIES.—Those principally grown are Rome 
Beauty, Minkler and Ben Davis, with what would 
ordinarily be considered a liberal planting of Bell¬ 
flower, Jonathan and Fameuse or Snow. The Rome 
Beauties do excellently in his orchard. The trees are 
well loaded with specimens of good size, which are 
very uniform and, practically, all absolutely perfect. 
This variety takes very kindly to spraying and I doubt 
if one could find one apple in one hundred that shows 
a single defect or blemish from insects or fungus dis¬ 
ease. The Rome Beauties and Ben Davis are given 
good soil and locations, as they are inclined to be par¬ 
ticular in that respect. They thrive upon high, fer¬ 
tile, sunny locations. The Minkler is a sort of 
“rough-and-ready fellow” that will grow, thrive and 
bear on almost any kind of soil, and is given the 
thinner land, the slopes of the ravine and the rather 
wet (though underdrained) location along the course 
of the small stream. In quality it is considered a 
little above Stark—not so good as Baldwin—and is of 
good red color. It is a good dependable variety for 
this section in many respects. I never saw such Bell¬ 
flowers. While not so loaded as were the other va¬ 
rieties, the branches, in places, were weighted to the 
ground where the great, perfect, greenish-yellow fruit 
lay upon the grassy mulch, reminding one of some 
varieties of our little Summer squashes. They were 
selling at the time of my visit, September 25, at $4.50 
per barrel. The Jonathan and Fameuse were already 
picked and in cold storage. 
THE STORAGE HOUSE.—Mr. Vergon has a cold 
storage building 32x54 feet in size. This is shown, 
among the fruiting trees, in Fig. 345. The more ele¬ 
vated part of this structure, upon the right hand, was 
the original cold storage room, 24x32 feet, to which. 
