1007. 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
io3 
PENNSYLVANIA APPLE GROWER TALKS. 
The Story of an Orchard. 
PART II. 
Years ago, before we were menaced by so many de¬ 
structive insects and fungus diseases, everyone who set 
out apple trees got some fruit. If through inattention 
he did not get it early, it usually came later, though not 
always in great quantity. But to-day it is different. 
Injudicious methods and inattention may give the pros¬ 
pect away before any profit is realized He who so 
treats bis orchard as to have it come into bearing from 
three to five years later will have to fight San Jose 
scale and other pests without any income to meet the 
expense. Some get their inspiration from the peach 
grower, who, having trees that previously bore three 
or four crops, discovers in late Winter that the peach 
buds are killed by a freeze of 15 below zero; then stag¬ 
horns his trees by cutting the limbs to short stubs. The 
next season they will put forth strong shoots from three 
to five feet long, from which he may, the following 
year, gather the"finest high-grade fruit. But in apply¬ 
ing this practice to the apple he will in due time learn 
that shoots forced from dormant buds on the apple will 
not bear fruit the following season, and not freely for 
several years thereafter. 1 know thousands of apple 
trees 12 years old that have produced no mar¬ 
ket fruit worth while, and which give no prom¬ 
ise of very profitable bearing in the next two 
or three years, mainly because of the lack of 
cultivation and the too free and injudicious use 
of the clippers. At nine years old the project¬ 
ing twigs which .were about matured for bear¬ 
ing fruit were cut back to less than two-thirds 
of their length; the following season from two 
to five sprouts put forth hack of every cut. The 
result was a veritable bird harbor—a thick net¬ 
work of extraneous shoots forced from dormant 
buds, most of them weaklings—a condition caus¬ 
ing the sure postponement of profitable bearing 
three or four years longer. Some insist on 
cutting back to strengthen the root, but the 
effect will be to weaken it. By destroying the 
correspondence between root and top the organ¬ 
ism is put out of balance, and continued severe 
cutting at either root or top will kill it. The 
top is never larger than is consistent with the 
root, and to nourish one is to nourish' the 
other. It is not by putting double duty on na¬ 
ture by reducing either root or top, but by sur¬ 
face cultivation and proper fertilization that the 
tree is nourished and strengthened. 
Nature regards the law of proportion, and 
between root and top there is complete corre¬ 
spondence. When a ruthless hand divests the 
tree of its thrifty projecting twigs this propor¬ 
tion is broken up, and to re-establish the former 
equilibrium nature will develop immature buds, 
and send out shoots in the effort to replace 
those which were taken away, hut not in the 
same form. Instead of mature twigs with prom¬ 
ise of immediate fruiting there will be a setting 
of immature weaklings, giving no promise of 
much well-formed fruit until the tree at cost 
of an ordinary crop is subject to cleaning out of 
all except the stronger leading branches, and 
given several years to harden up for hearing. 
But then this second cutting will produce a con¬ 
dition much like the first, for nature follows 
the law of compensation, and as a result there 
will he another setting of sprouts with a fur¬ 
ther postponement of profitable bearing. For 
let it be borne in mind that nature, while 
when set with fruit, lying on the ground, and the up¬ 
right portions of the irregular structure will lean apart; 
and under the weight of a light crop one after the 
other will split off at the base, leaving a few of the 
strongest with sparsely set top remaining to record an 
occasional half crop. The writer has in mind several 
orchards trained on this plan by a so-called expert 40 
years ago, and they have borne proportionally less fruit 
and present the poorest top structure to he found. 
With the lower limbs, when bearing, lying on the 
ground and with fruit poorly colored, mildewed and 
scabby, the owner viewing the profitless outcome became 
disgusted with the brushwood and broken trunks, and 
whacked them off with an ax, leaving the unsightly, 
sparsely limbed uprights remaining. In concluding this 
point, it is sufficient to say that starting the limbs two 
feet higher up from one strong single trunk there will 
develop a top structure capable of bearing double the 
quantity of apples. With from seven to nine main limbs 
started from the gnarly base, which nature provided, 
and which no woodman could split, and so trained to 
grow uniformly in every direction to cover a diameter 
of 30 feet at 15 years old, you will have the ideal, dur¬ 
able, round-topped apple tree of which the poets write. 
There is scarcely any other object within the range 
of horticultural art or skill that excites such great 
L 
spending her energies in the effort of battling 
against the folly of a fad will not at the same time 
furnish stock for the market basket, hut will follow 
the law of ptoducing new conditions by maturing wood 
for fruit setting several years later. In top-grafting, 
it the operator desires early bearing, he will cut the 
grafts from the extensions of fruit-bearing branches, 
not fro'm water sprouts forced from dormant buds. 
Another modern fad practiced by some in starting 
an orchard is to cut the young tree off several feet 
below the side branches at two feet from the ground, 
thus again ignoring nature by sacrificing the true base 
or setting for the future top structure. The branches 
that issue from below the cut will be emergency sprouts, 
the product of immature buds, and come into bearing 
several years later than those from twigs of original 
setting. But this is not all; these limbs, instead of 
assuming an oblique lateral position, will grow up in 
perpendicular form, having the appearance of a num¬ 
ber of little trees in a bunch, and instead of the strong 
upright legitimate single trunk with top structure based 
at \ x / 2 to five feet from the ground, there may he four 
or five branches, none of which will ever attain to 
the dignity of the substantial, storm-enduring tree 
1 1 link, hut will be of the character of emergency sprouts 
With Upright tendency, which if they survive their weak¬ 
ness to the hearing period will have lower branches 
NFOYV HYBRID DEUTZTA. REDUCED IN SIZE. 
See Ruralisms, Page 108. 
wonder or makes such a profound impression as the 
apple tree when in bloom or laden with fruit, not ir¬ 
regular stocks or results of crippling with the shears, 
hut the real tree of stout trunk and wide, spreading 
top of symmetrical form capable of being weighted with 
a ton of fruit without the breaking of a limb. A nurs¬ 
ery plant set with roots covered in brown earth and with 
little care as the Summers come and go is developed 
into a huge monarch of its species. And where is the 
intelligent husbandman who plucks the ripe fruit and in 
one act fills both basket and purse without a swelling 
of gratitude toward Him wdio gives the increase? 
Only the obdurate, ungrateful wretch could so appro¬ 
priate the bounty of Providence without being moved to 
thankfulness. henry omvvake. 
Franklin Co., Pa 
4 FARMER’S BOY ON FARM HELP. 
I have read with interest and with some pleasure most 
of the articles on the hired hand question, and 1 wish 
to add a few observations to the discussion. I do not 
know how conditions are in other places, hut here 
those who hire out are mostly young men, and those 
who put themselves permanently out of the way of be¬ 
ing hired by formers do so while they are yet young 
men. I am not an employer of labor, neither am I a 
hired hand, but I work on my father’s farm during 
vacation, and have experienced some of the phases of 
the hired hand question. Moreover, l am a young 
man, and therefore I think [ can appreciate a little more 
fully than the older writers the things which induce 
the young man to put himself out of the way of the 
farm life. I do not think the young man leaves the 
farm to escape the endless drudgery and grind of 
farm work, for T think there is more grind to the shop 
or factory than there is to the farm. Factory work 
seems to me somethjng like this: You go to work 
promptly at 7 A. M., rain or shine, hot or cold; you 
work till 12, go home at a pace between a walk and a 
trot, holt your dinner, hurry back, commence work 
promptly at 1 P. M., work till (5, and quit. This you 
do day after day, and every day you do the “same old 
thing in the same old way.” This is the drudgery of 
the factory. You can readily see that here the farm life 
is the easier—and most of the young men see it, too. 
But in connection with this regularity we must con¬ 
sider another matter. The factory hands’ hours are 
from 7 A. M. to (i P. M., or whatever it may be, and 
that invariably. On the farm the work is light and 
hours short part of the year, and work heavy and 
hours long the rest of the year. In the long days of 
the busy season a person yearns for the regular eight 
or 10-hour day with its few hours of leisure at 
the beginning and at the close. 
Then, too, there is the matter of wages. I 
do not believe that the average person can 
save as much in town on average town wages 
as he can in the country on average country 
wages. The young man, however, looks at the 
dollar a day, maybe, town wages and then at 
the $15 a month in the country with hoard and 
washing thrown in, and the dollar a day looks 
larger. He goes to town, gets his town wages, 
pays his board and washing bills, and it is pre¬ 
cious little more than country wages that he has 
left. He is now in the whirl of the society of 
the town, however, and lie does not think of 
getting out. “Man is a social creature.” We 
all love to be among our fellows, in a crowd, 
if you please. I think it safe to say that most 
of us pass our most pleasant hours in a crowd. 
The young man in a city soon gets into a crowd, 
good or bad, where he has a pleasant time. 
Moreover, this getting together for a pleasant 
time is the rule, not the exception. The regu¬ 
lar hours of town labor permit this. He has the 
time from six till nine or ten, or as late as he 
cares to stay up, and has it every evening. I 
have experienced town life somewhat, and this, 
to my mind, is one of its chief attractions. The 
various social activities of the town are attrac¬ 
tions also. 
I do not know that T can suggest any very 
good means to correct this tendency for labor 
to leave the soil. I do think it would he proper, 
though, and no more than right, to make a 
day’s work of a given length, and if a hand puts 
in extra time to any considerable extent to pay 
him extra for the extra time just as is done 
in town, (five him the best wages you can, and 
as many of the social and other advantages of 
the town, then maybe you can hold him and 
get pleasure and satisfaction from your rela¬ 
tions with him; maybe not. At any rate, you 
will not he hurt by the trial. Good hands arc 
hard to keep for another reason. You must 
pay a good price for them, and that is no more 
Fig. 41. than right; hut in a few years, if he saves (and 
the good hand usually does), lie sets up for 
himself, and is not only out of the market as 
an employee, but is in it as an employer. This is as 
it should be, yet it does not help much to settle the 
farm labor problem. 1 have faith that this problem 
will be worked out in good time. It may even prove 
one of our greatest blessings. In the meantime, let 
us work, and talk, and study to find the correct solu¬ 
tion; and let us he assured that somewhere, somehow, 
some time We will be benefited by the effort we put 
forth. a farmer’s boy. 
NOTES FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
Would you like to know of West Kootenay district? it 
lies between Kootenay and Arrow hakes, and contains the Sel¬ 
kirk Range; the valleys are narrow, so that settlement Is re¬ 
stricted; the thermometer seldom goes to zero, but, there is 
snow on the ground for three or four months. About four 
years ago the people, who bad hitherto only been interested 
in mining and lumbering, found that, the district was emi¬ 
nently suited for fruit growing, with the result that land 
I bought six years ago for $2 an acre can now lie sold for 
•$100. Our apples have taken medals In London, and it Is 
agreed by experts I lull no liner apples have ever been seen. 
We are free from San Josit scab 1 and Codling moth ; our pests 
at present are green and black aphis and Oyster-shell bark- 
lice and cutworms. Mulching will he followed by me, as the 
land is stony and thin; by growing clover, which does well 
here, I can Improve the soil and also feed the trees. The 
hens in colony houses will also improve the orchard. 
I’roctor, B. C. p. a. b. 
