e«2 
THE RURAL N EW-YORKER 
THE APPLE HARVEST. 
In this latitude—central Ohio—if we 
have a full crop in sight, as we have 
now, we commence harvesting about the 
20th of September, of course the earlier 
varieties; the harvest continues about 
six weeks on a full crop, 15 to 30 men 
are employed, according to the hours. 
Many conditions are to be carefully con¬ 
sidered. Last year we were frozen out, 
except a few carloads of Rome Beau¬ 
ties, and still less Ben Davis. The 
Rome Beauty is the latest to bloom of 
any, and escaped more than any variety. 
The very severe drought continued late, 
the apples did not grow, were starved 
for humidity, and we feared they would 
hardly be merchantable, but the rain did 
come, as it always has, though some¬ 
times a little late. In this case we had 
only a small part of a crop; did not 
harvest until the last of October. It 
was wonderful how the beauties swelled 
out, about normal size, and colored to 
“beat the band,” as the boys say. It is 
surprising, if conditions are favorable, 
what crisp, clear October weather will 
do to finish up the crop, with all its 
beauty of tints and shades of all colors. 
We realized $7 per barrel for most of 
them. 
Some seasons we were not able to 
finish with the harvest until in Novem¬ 
ber on account of bad weather; the ap¬ 
ples seemed to be frozen like rocks, and 
we picked only in the afternoons; they 
come out all right in Spring. They were 
the Ben Davis, which so many naughty 
things are said about; but they are good 
hangers-on. In fact the tree and apples 
have only one poor quality, many vari¬ 
eties have more. On the home stretch, 
April, May and the fore part of June, 
they always sell to good advantage. 
Ix>oks and attractiveness are great re¬ 
quisites, sometimes quality is ignored. 
No doubt these factors have been the 
means of disposing of precious things 
to good advantage, that are not sold by 
the barrel. 
After an experience of more than 30 
years with cold storage, cooled with ice, 
I believe that apples fully mature in size 
and color if possible to wait and get 
through on time; they will keep better, 
better quality, more profitable, etc., even 
if there be a few more windfalls; worm- 
falls is the more proper cause, but good 
results more than balance the loss. 
My age will bear me out if I digress 
a little, and it may not be unprofitable 
if I say a few words on how we pre¬ 
pared to control the elements last 
Spring. We constructed a large cistern 
on top of a bluff, which is centrally lo¬ 
cated in the orchard, with a pipe from 
the bottom of the cistern through the 
bank, with a faucet from which the 
tank wagon is loaded with oil. In April 
the Hamilton orchard heaters were 
placed one per tree on the northwest 
side, about 10 feet from the trunks, and 
all filled with oil ready to fire. My son 
and partner, J. C. Vergon, had some 
arrangement to rouse him up at night 
at any temperature he wished if danger 
approached, but was not aroused a sin¬ 
gle night. One rough day I brought one 
of the heaters in the yard and fired it; 
it burned all day, and I warmed my 
shins a part of the time, and concluded 
it certainly would make quite a differ¬ 
ence in temperature, one per tree all 
over the orchard. After the danger was 
over it was all hauled back to the cis¬ 
tern ; we have 20,000 gallons on tap for 
future use. In conversation with my 
son about the seeming unnecessary ex¬ 
pense, he said if we had scared the 
enemy away by being well prepared it 
was much our cheapest way out. He 
had figured the cost per night if fired at 
$125 to $150. I said I was not especial¬ 
ly complaining, that I was a believer 
in arbitration if it could be done honor¬ 
ably, if not apply the torch. 
Ohio. F. P. VERGON. 
Do Not Transplant Asparagus. 
G. A. M., Kittery Depot, Me. —I have 
come into possession of a sadly neglected 
asparagus bed. It is full of young plants 
from last year’s berries. Can I take these 
up for transplanting without spoiling the 
old roots? Can it be successfully done this 
Fall or must I wait till Spring? 
Ans. —It depends largely on what one 
hopes to accomplish with the plants that 
are reset. In other words, if inquirer 
is striving only to grow for his own 
private use in a small way he may suc¬ 
ceed by careful work, and nursing, but 
for commercial planting the proposition 
is entirely different. The commercial 
grower must cater to the public demand, 
and what is that? Large, straight, 
strong, good colored and high-flavored 
asparagus. From a financial standpoint 
the grower must have yield too. Can 
all this be had from a miscellaneous 
lot of volunteer plants? Most decidedly 
no. I know of no plant that responds 
to man’s intelligence and care more 
readily than does the asparagus. The 
plants inquirer wishes to use for plant¬ 
ing a new bed have not had either in¬ 
telligence or care bestowed upon them. 
Another vital point not to be overlooked 
in any case is breeding. Does inquirer 
know what his variety is? Is it a straight 
strain of an improved variety or only a 
mongrel lot? If the latter, no matter 
how well he does his work the future 
bed will not be as good, because it can¬ 
not do it. It has not the blood of an¬ 
cestry behind it. Another point is, these 
volunteer plants are from seed borne on 
plants sadly neglected; hence, aside from 
variety and strain, as mentioned above, 
they are low in vitality and lacking in 
constitutional vigor, also small because 
of lack of care and proper feeding and 
nursing while young. Then, too, the 
asparagus plant has a multitude of ene¬ 
mies, both insect and fungus, and needs 
man’s most watchful care to protect it 
from them, so it may be permitted to do 
its best. In this case, it is evident that 
neither parent nor offspring has had this 
care or protection. I have repeatedly 
seen young asparagus plants eaten so 
badly by the bugs that they died out¬ 
right, and in many cases where they 
did not die entirely they were so crip¬ 
pled they never recovered sufficiently to 
produce more than a very small crop of 
culls only. 
Can the plants be taken up this Fall 
and reset? No. It is quite possible that 
they would freeze even here in New 
Jersey, to say nothing about inquirer’s 
much colder climate. I have seen plants 
taken from the nursery row in Spring 
that had been frozen the previous Win¬ 
ter because of insufficient earth over 
the roots. They might, however, be 
dug this Fall, and stored in a very cool 
place packed in earth. Can they be 
taken up without spoiling the old roots? 
That depends on where they are lo¬ 
cated, also how deep in the soil the old 
roots are, and how deep the young ones. 
That question can only be answered by 
trial with observations. When digging 
if one does not come in contact with 
many roots of the old plants no partic¬ 
ular harm is done. From my viewpoint 
if this “sadly neglected bed” has been 
one or more years without cultivation 
or attention of any kind, it will be hard 
to hurt it further, and still harder to 
bring it back to a paying proposition. 
Were this bed mine I would plow it up, 
buy seed from a good bed of the variety 
and strain I desired, and start afresh; 
a paying bed will be reached sooner. 
Personally I would not set those plants 
if a man would dig and give them to 
me. c. c. HULSART. 
New Jersey. 
Tree Cricket Girdles Grapes. 
L. N. B., Mount Vernon, III .—Something 
girdles my grapes; i. e., the bunch of fruit 
is girdled, generally the lower half; then 
fruit is ruined, as it wilts and dries up. Is 
it a cricket? Our grapes ripen in August, 
but I have had Ives grapes hold good 
through September. 
Ans. —There is a little rascal that does 
just such work as the writer describes. 
It is a species of tree cricket that some¬ 
times eats the skin of tender vegetation, 
and is found oq grapevines quite fre¬ 
quently, where it does girdle the stems 
of the clusters partly or entirely. This 
causes a stoppage of the proper circu¬ 
lation and the berries cannot develop 
as they should. There is almost no 
practical way to prevent the troubles. 
Spraying with an arsenical preparation 
that would kill the insects might be very 
dangerous to the eater of the fruit. May¬ 
be others know better than I about this. 
H. E. VAN DEMAN. 
Slow Growth of Wealthy Apple. 
F. It. L., Troy, N. Y .—About four years 
ago I purchased about 50 Wealthy apple 
trees from an Ohio nursery for ‘‘fillers.” 
As I remember, they had a lot of fine roots, 
more so than other varieties. Now they 
do not grow as fast as Baldwin, etc., and 
it is hard to get a good growth on them. 
Has Wealthy fine roots whim young, and do 
the trees make slow growth or might it be 
“hairy root?” 
Ans. —The Wealthy apple is a variety 
well suited to use as a filler between 
the kinds that are later in coming into 
bearing. It is a slow grower after the 
fruiting stage is reached, and that is 
very early in life. I have seen the trees 
bear while yet in the nursery rows. It 
is not strange that the trees grow slow¬ 
ly for F. R. L. There may be some 
trouble with the roots, such as he sus¬ 
pects, but this is not at all sure, for the 
root system of this variety is slender, 
yet very abundant. It would be well to 
thin off the fruit very severely while it 
is very small, and thus decrease the load, 
give that which is left a better chance 
to grow and the trees as well. 
H. E. VAN DEM AN. 
. t i _ • f 
Father Mother 
Sister Brother 
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