Vol. LXIV. No. 2890. 
NEW YORK, JUNE 17, 1905 
WEEKLY, ?1.00 PER YEAR. 
FRUIT GROWING ON ROUGH LAND. 
A NEW USE OF OLD PASTURE. 
Promising Industry for New England. 
UNPROMISING SITUATIONS.—On the rough 
hills around Wallingford, Conn., an experiment in fruit 
culture is being worked out which is sure to have a great 
influence upon New England horticulture. It is bring¬ 
ing waste if not abandoned land back to profitable pro¬ 
duction. Mr. J. Norris Barnes, of Yalesville, is the 
pioneer in this rough land planting. As is usually the 
case, neighbors watched the plan and the trees until 
results began to show—then peach trees began to 
crowd in upon the hills everywhere. Mr. Barnes, with 
his brother, conducts a nursery business chiefly on the 
level land at the lower part of the 
farm. The hills are being planted to 
peach orchards, with apple trees in 
most of them—designed for permanent 
use of the ground. 
One must go to New England to 
realize just what a hill farm means. 
Some of these hills have been cleared 
for more than two centuries, and have 
been practically abandoned. The de¬ 
velopment of New England farming 
during the past 25 years has been chief¬ 
ly along the valleys, where flat land, 
reasonably good and easily tilled, has 
been used for truck farming or grow¬ 
ing feed and forage. The hill lands 
are difficult to cultivate, and have been 
used as pastures or left to grow up to 
brush and wood. A man may travel 
back from some populous manufactur¬ 
ing town, still in the hearing of fac¬ 
tory whistles, and find himself in a 
wilderness, with little besides old stone 
walls and rotting fences to show that 
humans ever held the hills as their 
home. These hills are mostly rocky 
and steep—in some cases being nearly 
covered with flat stones, while in 
others large bowlders or rocky ledges 
show upon the surface. While these 
uninviting fields are usually of good 
fertility they have little commercial 
value. All farm property in this sec¬ 
tion a few miles back from the rail¬ 
road is low, even the excellent dairy 
farms which lie in the valleys. These 
old hills have little value, because they 
have been judged by their ability to 
compete with the smooth valley lands 
in growing truck or feed. Mr. Barnes 
believed that this cheap and idle land 
could be turned into profitable or¬ 
chards of peach and apple if they were 
handled in the way best suited to their 
needs. It was evident that “intense and thorough cul¬ 
ture,” such as is advocated by many expert growers, 
would not do here. 
WHY USE HILL LAND?—But why should an ex¬ 
perienced man consider these rough hills suitable for 
fruit growing? 
All old pasture lands are strong. That is well un¬ 
derstood. I once attended a farmers’ meeting at the 
orchard of Grant Hitchings—the advocate of mulching. 
An old farmer who was present said: 
“I am told that this hill where the orchard is was 
used years ago as a pasture for cattle and sheep. That 
explains it. No wonder the trees grow. Stock may 
walk away from a field, but they can’t carry the strength 
they have added to the soil.” 
V/hen soil goes back to nature' it never loses strength, 
but gains in humus, water-holding capacity, and the 
peculiar character required to produce a tree and grow 
firm, high-colored fruit. It is now pretty well under¬ 
stood that in the North, away from large bodies of 
water, the hillsides are the safest places for peach or¬ 
chards. In time of frost, at least when the air is still, 
the hills are likely to be warmer, since cold air, being 
heavier, rolls down into the valleys. Air drainage is 
also better on the hills, and this constant circulation of 
air may mean greater safety from fungus diseases. The 
use of chemical fertilizers is now becoming so well un¬ 
derstood that peach growers can feed a tree properly on 
almost any soil that is not too wet. Therefore those 
hills which had been crowded out of competition with 
ordinary crops may yet find a new place in farm econ¬ 
omy. It is not unlike putting an idle man who has 
loafed and grown strong for years, at a useful job which 
attracts the best there is in him, giving him opportunity. 
ROUGH LAND PLANTING.—‘What special method 
is suitable for planting such lands? In my own case I 
have been satisfied to put June-bud peach trees into the 
ground without plowing or cultivating the soil—piling a 
mulch of some sort around the little trees, feeding them 
well and then leaving them pretty much alone to make 
their own heads.- The growth of such trees has been 
moderate—with a low and peculiar wide-spreading head 
—well adapted to hillsides where the winds are strong. 
It has been my practice to cut the top of the tree back 
12 or 15 inches and the roots back to mere stubs. Ex¬ 
perience shows that by starting the trees this way we 
have better control of the top as it grows and can start 
it close to the ground in bush form. I have found that 
close root-pruning, and planting in a small hole, has 
given a deeper and, as I consider, a better root system. 
Mr. Barnes is evidently not prepared to go to this 
extreme limit in rough land planting. He cuts the top 
of the tree—usually a yearling—back to a small whip, 
but leaves, I should judge, about five inches of side 
root. With the first orchards, now eight or nine years 
old, the ground was evidently quite well tilled to 
begin with, but as the trees have grown successfully it 
would seem as if with each year the trees have been 
planted on rougher land—with less importance attached 
to the previous culture. In fact, Mr. Barnes told me of 
one orchard planted on land which a few years ago he 
considered too rough for profitable use. I am sure 
that most people will plant on rough land at first with 
many misgivings only to be astonished at their success, 
provided they give the trees a fair chance. Mr. Ba'rnes 
took me back to an old moss-grown pasture where a 
neighbor has started an orchard. The 
trees were cut back to eight inches or 
a foot above ground and had been 
planted right in the old sod. Then two 
or three furrows on either side of each 
row had been turned to the trees. The 
trees were apparently all starting. They 
would look forlorn enough to a peach 
grower who follows the old plan of 
thorough cultivation, but I know from 
experience what such trees will do if 
the grass and weeds are kept away 
from the trunks and the trees are fair¬ 
ly well fed. 
HOW TO START.—I asked Mr. 
Barnes to tell in a brief statement just 
how lie prefers to plant a tree. Here 
is his answer: 
“The method we prefer to use in 
planting a young peach orchard, if the 
land is fairly tillable and in fair con¬ 
dition, is to open a trench by turning 
a two-horse plow furrow each way, 
and with shovel enlarging and deepen¬ 
ing the place for the tree, to receive 
the tree roots the proper depth, and 
that should be such that the union of 
the bud with the stock is not higher 
than the surface of the ground. We 
have given up making large holes, but 
aim to fill around roots with the best 
soil, and add bought fertility according 
to richness of soil. A mulch of leaves 
or litter of some sort around the newly 
planted tree is excellent treatment, 
nothing better. Later we turn back 
one, two or three furrows to the tree 
row; that is the team work for the 
first season, but if the trees are not 
mulched they are worked around suffi¬ 
ciently to keep down all trash growth 
about them. The cultivated area is en¬ 
larged as the growing tree demands 
until the whole surface is under tillage. 
This system has given us excellent results, and we are 
pleased with it, as being economical, saving of the 
vegetable substance in the soil and preventing in part 
the tendency to wash by rains on the hillsides. Our 
main orchard, now eight and nine years old, was plant¬ 
ed and grown by this method, next to no fertilizer be¬ 
ing used after trees were well started, until after first 
crop of fruit was obtained, and it is and has been a 
splendid orchard, and has given us large quantities of 
fine fruit. Our apple orchards have mostly been planted 
with the peach trees, and so of course have had the 
same treatment.” 
Thus in the younger orchards you will find rows of 
young trees stretching across the fields with three or 
four feet of plowed space on either side, and the rest 
of the surface left untouched. Year by year more of the 
centers are plowed until the entire field has been turned 
over. All the later plantings of trees, within three or 
