1910. 
TUB RURAL NEW-YORKER 
49 
HENS IN THE ORCHARD. 
Years ago orchards were pruned so 
that j-ou could drive a team under the 
lowest limbs, and then it was a common 
thing to pasture the cows in the orchard; 
even the horses were turned in the or¬ 
chard for the night. We have pastured 
all kinds of stock in our orchards, but 
have concluded that the ideal is only 
found in hens. Now for the reason for 
the faith there is in us. We must have 
our trees just as low as possible, be¬ 
cause we have to be so thorough when 
spraying for the scale. One might al¬ 
most as well not spray at all as to leave 
some spots untouched when fighting San 
Jose scale. The limbs up 30 feet or so 
from the ground arc so hard to get at 
that we have been dishorning, or cutting 
out the high limbs and gradually bring¬ 
ing the top lower until almost one-third 
of the fruit can be reached from the 
ground. Just how much of this would 
be harvested if we were pasturing cows 
or horses there can be very readily es¬ 
timated. Sheep or hogs will also get 
many dollars worth of fruit if let run 
in an orchard where the loaded lower 
limbs are resting on the ground. 
With hens you can mulch just as heav¬ 
ily as you will, and they will scratch and 
work in it, and pay you a better profit 
than any other stock. Some orchardists 
complain that the hens damage the trees 
by roosting in them, but where many of 
the hens are roosting in the trees you 
may be sure the houses are unfit for 
them. We have two orchards now side 
by side; one with hogs, and one with 
hens, and the hens have by far the best 
of the argument. Besides the fact of 
being able to use the orchards for the 
hens to run in, as you can do with no 
other stock, and so getting two crops off 
the same ground, the labor of harvest¬ 
ing the fruit comes in Summer and Fall 
when there is very little to do with the 
hens, while the Winter season, with its 
heavy work with the hens, has almost 
nothing we can do in the orchards save 
pruning. The early spraying for scale 
should be out of the way before the little 
chicks come in the Spring, and in the hot 
weather if you should hear a chorus of 
hens on a hot day singing “In the shade 
of the old apple tree” you would realize 
that poultry and fruit are complements 
of each other, and go together like a 
pair of gloves. floyd q. white. 
Westchester Co., N. Y. i 
PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE 
HILLY DISTRICTS OF OHIO. 
Part II. 
Fruit and poultry surely promise a com¬ 
bination to relieve the grave problems of 
land owners in these rough districts. There 
is space unlimited for the development of 
these industries. Tree fruits come into 
bearing early on these hill slopes, the 
product is most excellently colored and the 
quality unsurpassed. The trees make a 
moderate rate of growth, and, with faithful 
mulching to conserve moisture and afford 
and increase plant food, will continue in 
fruit bearing through a generous period of 
time. The hills with their sunny slopes 
and numerous nooks naturally protected 
from the force of the Winter winds, afford 
ideal conditions for the colony system of 
poultry culture. There was much interest 
manifested in certain of these hilly neigh¬ 
borhoods in the explanations of present-day 
methods of fruit and poultry culture. This 
interest was especially marked among the 
younger folks. Many questions were asked. 
At one point 100 high school students tilled 
and refilled the coaches in a double pro¬ 
gramme and were attentive and intelligent 
listeners. 1 am confident that seeds were 
sown that will prove to have fallen on 
fertile soil, to spring up and bear fruit to 
the betterment of conditions in that section 
in the future. Improvement may be slow, 
but the more alert will set the pace by 
which the slower will benefit later on. 
Charts showing figures from actual or¬ 
chard work conducted by our experiment 
station in that section during the past sea¬ 
son, proved to these land owners that, from 
orchards for long years neglected and no 
longer considered worth the ground occu¬ 
pied, as much as from $300 to $500 worth 
of sound apples per acre had been produced 
and sold the past season—the result of the 
first season’s spraying alone. This bit of 
work by our station in Washington County 
has caused a remarkable-awakening among j 
land owners, and the price of land has 
doubled or trebled in a few months in these 
neighborhoods. The leading nurserymifn of 
the southeast section of Ohio reports that 
his sales of apple trees have increased by a 
surprising bound within the past Autumn. 
Demand for reliable horticultural literature 
has increased in proportion. The long-hid¬ 
den and little understood enemies of the i 
orchardisi.—the apple scab and sooty fun¬ 
gus, the curculio and the Codling moth, have | 
been revealed to the scrutiny of the public, 
and the means of combating these pests 
made clear. Spraying appliances and ma¬ 
terials are the subjects of general discus¬ 
sion at the fireside, the corner stores, on 
tlie railroad trains and at farmers’ insti¬ 
tutes. Hugged old Washington County, which 
contains approximately 7,000 acres of apple 
orchards—a much greater acreage than in 
any county of Ohio—is stirred from its cen¬ 
ter to its borders by a few simple demon¬ 
strations in fungus and insect control by 
spraying. In one instance, a $2,400 crop 
of apples was saved by the use of a simple, 
inexpensive hand, outfit, costing but $20 
which was sent down to Washington County 
by the experiment station and used under 
the station's direction. Parts of the same 
orchard, and same varieties, unsprayed, pro¬ 
duced nothing but worthless culls. 
Demonstrational work in orchard culture 
will follow in the wake of these lessons in 
spraying. Already a number of carefully 
chosen sites for fair, impartial comparison's 
of mulching with cover-crop culture and 
both of these with ordinary sod conditions 
now prevailing so generally, have been made. 
These located experiments will cover all 
characters of soils from the sand and gravel 
of the river valley to the stiff, red clay and 
light, thin soils of the hill slopes and tops. 
Orchard owners are already grasping these 
hints relative to improvement of cultural 
methods. One man has used the entire 
crop of corn stover from a hill-top field, for 
mulching his apple trees on the lull orchard 
adjoining, rather than haul it down the 
almost “mountain road” to sell at 12 cents 
per shock. Others are buying stover and 
straw for the same purpose, One orchard 
owner who is to be a co-operator in the 
future, in orchard culture work, was given 
permission to buy, at the station’s expense, 
2V 2 Ions of straw to mulch a small plot to 
be compared with another similar plot in 
sod ummllehed. He purchased the required 
quantity of straw and then hauled in seven 
tons additional, purchased on his own ac¬ 
count. These are only evidences of the faith 
of these awakened orchardists who have set 
out to win—and will do so. It exhibits 
how readily, gratefully and vigorously the 
more thoughtful, aggressive land owners of 
a section grasp the meaning of a plan that 
is especially adapted to their local con¬ 
ditions and particular needs. The individual 
or the institution which would go into that 
region and recommend plowing those steep, 
already overworked and soil-denuded hill 
slopes would get a mighty cool reception. 
Such advice, if followed at all persistently, 
would only make serious matters worse and 
fail utterly to help a people who need 
beyond all other lessons, to learn how to 
conserve the remaining resources of their 
soil. The real, true, lasting deliverance of 
the farm owners of the hilly sections of 
eastern and southern Ohio, and like regions, 
will be ever multiplying colonies of Leg¬ 
horns, Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island 
Reds, well mulched and otherwise well-cared- 
for orchards of Rome Beauties. Grimes Gold¬ 
en. Jonathan and Stayman Winesap apples, 
modern equipment for spraying and up-to- 
date methods of grading, packing and mar¬ 
keting their fruits. These southern Ohio 
hills can produce as fine apples of ^ood 
color and size as any of the Far Western 
or Northwestern States, and the quality of 
our home-grown product is decidedly su¬ 
perior. F. II. BALLOU. 
Trinidad Lake 
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PAVING COMPANY 
Largest producers of 
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When you write advertisers mention The 
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Chicago, Boston. 
Mention R.N-Y. 
Get 
Bigg 
Crops 
with the 
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Perfect distribution, assuring bigger andevener 
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Planet Jr Farm and Garden Implements do more and better work, and 
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Box 1107V PhiladaPa-'y* 
A 
A 
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