mos. 
APPLE CULTURE IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 
CULTIVATION OR MULCH ? 
An Important Experiment. 
Part X. 
Here is a question often asked at fruit growers’ 
meetings: 
“Is it true that apples grown in sod have better 
keeping quality than those grown under tillage ?” 
No one seems to say yes or no without qualifica¬ 
tion. My own experience indicates that the culti¬ 
vated apples are larger, lighter in color and less firm 
than those grown in sod. My sod fruit will certainly 
average smaller and considerably higher in color. 
Our only keeping test is that of putting all together 
in an ordinary cellar, as we sell most of our fruit 
early. From this test I feel sure that the sod apples 
are better keepers. In commercial apple culture this 
does not make so much difference, as most apples 
are put at once into cold storage and 
kept there until sold. A large number of 
scientific experiments have' been con¬ 
ducted wifh varying results. There is a 
certain definite time beyond which apples 
should not be in storage. After this pe¬ 
riod the sod fruit keeps best. The sod 
fruit matures earlier than the cultivated, 
and if picked at the same time is a little 
higher colored. This high-colored matured fruit of 
course keeps better than immature fruit, especially 
with the earlier varieties, like W ealthy, Alexander and 
Fameuse. These varieties undoubtedly keep better 
when grown on sod land than fruit from tilled land 
picked at the same time. Where the latter was al¬ 
lowed to grow longer there is not much difference. In 
commercial orcharding I think more depends on other 
things, such as picking and handling. No matter how 
the apple is grown, bruising and rough handling will 
hurt the fruit. I am told that a delay of a couple of 
weeks in handling Rhode Island Greening in warm 
weather may make a difference of two months iy its 
keeping qualities. The above applies to commercial 
growing where fruit is hurried into storage. For a 
farm cellar or ordinary storehouse I am sure the sod 
fruit keeps longer. 
I beg to express the hope in the discussion now going on 
in your journal on the sub¬ 
ject of cultivation versus 
mulching of apple trees, 
that consideration will be 
given to the probably less¬ 
ened danger from deep 
freezing by the liberal 
mulching to 1 lie extremi¬ 
ties of the roots. A friend 
has the habit of gathering 
forest leaves, and covering 
the whole root system of 
his choice trees with them, 
holding them down with 
brush piled above them. He 
is emphatic in his belief 
that there is benefit to the 
trees from the lessened 
freezing of the ground that 
follows. Possibly the bene¬ 
fit to the trees you describe 
planted near the stone wall 
may be partly due to less¬ 
ened freezing of the ground 
under the wall. If the 
temperature was, as you 
state, lower in Summer, 
may it not have been 
higher In Winter? Three 
years since I inclosed in 
my chicken yard a choice 
Greening apple tree about 
40 years of age. The 
fence ran near the tree, so 
that about half of the root 
system could be reached by 
the hens in scratching. In 
the beginning the ground 
under the tree to the ex¬ 
tremities of the roots with¬ 
in the enclosure, was 
forked over and made at¬ 
tractive for the hens to 
sciatch and wallow in. This they did for two Summers 
without especially exposing any of the important roots of 
the tree. Seeking the shade of this tree, about 100 hens 
have from their droppings by this time made the ground 
very rich. The roots of the tree on the other side of the 
fence have been in dense sod for many years, but well fer¬ 
tilized with stable manure during the last two years. The 
effect upon the tree has been enormous, eacli year showing 
an increasing yield of fruit of improving quality. This last 
Autumn, becoming Impressed with the thought that tin- 
bare ground on the chickens’ side of the fence might freeze 
deeply, I ordered it covered with straw to good depth, and 
this again covered with cornstalks, the latter to be held 
down by old boards against the force of the winds. I gave 
no directions for covering the sodded side of the tree, as¬ 
suming that the old, tough sod would be a fair protection. 
Being only an amateur I am not sure of my reasoning, 
logically, it might be said that the balance must lx 1 kept 
between the top and the roots of the tree: if tin- roots are 
protected the top must in some way be equally sheltered. 
In the case of the tree I have described, it may also be 
said that protection is unnecessary, because the tree has 
gone through two severe Winters in Connecticut, at 1,000 
feet elevation, and has steadily improved! I have been 
THEC RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Iiecnlv interested in your series of articles, and I have been 
v. ondering if the matter of the deep freezing of the ground 
would be a factor you would consider before the series is 
complete. I write now to ask if [ am justified in assuming 
that careful protection of the roots of apple trees against 
deep freezing is worth while? If not profitable in com¬ 
mercial orchards, may if not be so when applied to choice 
varieties on the home grounds? s. g. p. 
I am not sure of my ground here, and would like 
opinions from others. The Ohio Experiment Station 
did some work along this line, and found, I think, 
that the sod ground did not freeze as deeply as the 
cultivated ground. I do not think great damage is 
often done by freezing the roots, provided the soil 
is kept solidly frozen. The trouble I have observed 
is where the ground alternately freezes and thaws. 
I think the value of a Winter mulch is that it equalizes 
the temperature by holding frost in the ground—not 
because it keeps the frost out. The present Winter 
is so mild and open that we are preparing to haul 
A THREE-ROW MARKER. Fig. 21 . 
forest leaves from the woods and pile them on the 
sod in our orchards. As for the stone walls, I think 
they hold moisture and attract great armies of earth¬ 
worms and other insects. These work the soil over 
thoroughly, and when they die fill the ground near 
the wall with soluble plant food. Then, again, grass 
and weeds flourish near the wall, and on dying fill 
tie soil with vegetable matter or humus. That is why 
when you take the wall away and plow up the entire 
field the wall leaves its mark. 
DOES FRUIT GROWING PAY?—In addition to 
the statements made recently 1 am able to give the 
following from Willard Hopkins, of Youngstown, 
N. Y. Let me say again that I would not lead any 
new beginner to think he can reach any such results 
one time in 100. Such results mean long study. 
'Then I see young men in our fruit-growing districts 
leaving the farm for work in the shops, on the railroads, 
A HOMEMADE GREENHOUSE THAT GREW FROM A HOTBED. Fig. 22 
and many other professions, for the great wheat-growing 
districts of the West or chasing the will-o’-the-wisp to 
gold iflelds, Klondike or Cobalt, and overlooking the golden 
opportunities right at home. I think something must be 
radically wrong. The old-fashioned happy-go-lucky manner 
of fruit raising does not afford sufficient remuneration to 
keep the boys on the farm, while I could cite hundreds 
and thousands of instances where small farms of 100 acres 
in Western New York, between Genesee and Niagara 
rivers, with only a portion of them in fruit, have earned 
for the owners a competency producing in single years 
$5,000 to 810 000 and over $15,000. I will recall an in¬ 
stance of a young man buying, six years ago, a 100-acre 
farm for 87.500, with 30 acres of fruit. Il was paid for 
in four years. This year he received $7,000 for the fruit 
of the trees from his 20-acre apple orchard. Another 
orchard of equal age and size within half a mile gave as 
many hundred dollars. The scale and Codling moth took 
one, and the sulphur and lime and the Bordeaux took the 
scale and Codling moth in the other. Another instance 
where a young man a year ago bought a fruit farm of 
140 acres for $25,000, having $5,000 capital. 11 is sales this 
year amounted to .over $15,000 from his farm. I could 
cite instance after instance where neglected fruit farms 
3f> 
are bought and paid for in short time by up-to-date young 
men. The fruit grower's life, it seems to me, is very much 
preferred to that of a clerkship even in a Government 
office, or an ordinary profession. Where is there a more 
delightful spot for home than in our Niagara Peninsula 
or in western New York? Instead of having to send 
our products thousands of miles to market, paying $300 to 
$400 a car, we are within 24 hours’ ride of 40,000,000 hun¬ 
gry people. I have no regrets that I selected fruit grow¬ 
ing as a profession. After all its uncertainties, when 
three, four and live years ago it seemed as though the 
scale would ruin all our orchards, it seems like getting 
back what I thought was lost.. The present season, being 
unfavorable for many varieties of fruits, we were satis¬ 
fied to receive from the sales of our home farm upwards of 
$20,000, and from all our orchards, upwards of $20,000. 
After deducting the amount paid for help, spraying ma¬ 
terial and machinery, we have a nice bank account to win¬ 
ter on. h. w. c. 
GIRDLING TO START FRUITING. 
I have had no experience whatever in Summer 
pruning to cause fruiting; have never 
desired early bearing by young trees. I 
have a block of Mammoth Black Twig 
trees now 17 years old that had borne 
but a very little each year. These trees 
I partly girdled by cutting strips of bark, 
wedge-shaped at each end, from their 
trunks perpendicularly. These strips be¬ 
gin a few inches above the ground and 
continue around the trunk about 2 Hi inches wide and 
12 to 20 inches in length, leaving a strip of live bark 
not over y 2 inch wide in its narrowest place between 
each strip cut out. (See Fig. 20.) This should be 
done in this section about June 12 to 15 (the time 
may be extended a few days before or after this 
time), when the new wood is forming, which I think 
is called the cambium layer, which remains on the 
tree when the outer bark is removed, and can be 
detected if in right condition hy pressing thumb nail 
into it, feeling it cut as if it was a thick green leaf 
or an apple peeling between the thumb nail and the 
hard wood. If it is yet too early the wood where 
hark has been removed will be wet with sap and firm 
when pressed by the nail, and if too late the bark 
may not come off quite so easily, and this soft layer 
has become too firm to cut by the nail. This place 
where the bark has been removed will grow new bark 
in a short time if the 
bark was removed at the 
proper time. But in case 
a failure is made the 
small strip of bark left 
between each piece re¬ 
moved will grow, keep¬ 
ing the tree alive and 
will in a few years heal 
over the wound. This 
girdling was done on a 
few dozen trees in June, 
1906. Last Spring all so 
treated set very full of 
apples, which had never 
occurred before, but all 
fruits were killed by a 
freeze some time later. 
These trees had always 
bloomed full, but shed 
each time without setting 
much fruit. I also gir¬ 
dled a large number of 
Rome Beauty trees in 
this way, but on account 
of their being a late 
blooming variety I did 
not see what the result 
would be. Many of the 
Rome Beauty trefcs failed 
to grow new bark, but 
on account of the one- 
half inch strips of bark 
left between the strips of 
bark removed are grow¬ 
ing nicely, hut have the scars with no new bark cover¬ 
ing. Last June this treatment was extended to other 
varieties, and new bark formed in every case. I shall 
have to wait for another year to see what the result 
will be on the fruiting of these trees. I have now 
trees ranging in age from 10 to 22 years girdled in 
this way. I do not know whether this process of 
girdling will cause trees to fruit for several years 
or not. The shape of the strip of bark removed and 
their position to each other caq be seen in diagram. 
Southwest Missouri. w. t. flournoy. 
PLASTERING TANK WITH CEMENT.—About six years 
ago I had a wooden tank about six feet in diameter that 
leaked badly. I got some Portland cement and plastered 
it tightly on the Inside, which made it tight and I have 
put on a light coat of plaster two or three times siuoe, 
and it is doing good service. The staves are many of 
them rotted off, but manage to hold the hoops, g. b. d. 
Wisconsin. 
