THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1297 
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WOMAN AND HOME 
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A School Teacher’s Apple Orchard 
Like An Endowment Policy 
[At Hie apple auction hold by the Now 
York Foods and Markets Department at 
Gardiner, X. Y.. an orchard belonging to 
Miss Mary Deyo was sold at a good price. 
Miss Deyo is the first woman to sell 
fruit in this way and the idea of a wom¬ 
an growing an orchard as an investment 
is a novel one. So we asked Miss Deyo 
to fell us about her orchard. She has 
done so in the following excellent article.] 
A Farm With Disadvantages.—I 
inherited a farm of SO acres from my 
father. It had been rented out for 50 
years or more, and, while fairly good 
land, was in a run-down condition, and 
had the further disadvantage of not be¬ 
ing on any main road, but was reached 
by a private lane 80 rods long. The 
house was small and undesirable, and the 
wives of the tenants always objected to 
the loneliness. It was a difficult place 
to rent, as only a shiftless man or one 
unusually “down on his luck” would live 
in such a place. At the time it came 
into my possession I had just graduated 
from a normal school expecting to make 
teaching my work—and shortly after I 
left the country and came home at very 
infrequent intervals. 
Starting The Orchard. —When I 
was home in 1805 I found a growing in¬ 
anyone, for I am not at all a farmer like 
the many women we read about in agri¬ 
cultural papers. I like the feeling of 
owning fields and trees, but I don’t like 
and can’t do outdoor work and I don’t 
feel that I’ve done a single thing that 
could be held up as an example. How¬ 
ever the problem confronting me was 
perhaps one that is not uncommon; a 
single woman with no equpiment, and a 
run-down farm, and so the way in which 
I struggled through may interest some 
so I am giving this sketch, not as one 
telling of a successfully conducted enter¬ 
prise, but rather as Paul told of the end 
of his voyage. “Some on boards and some 
on broken pieces of the ship, we all got 
.safe to land.” 
Discouragements Encountered.—I 
My income was barely enough to live on. 
had some enthusiasm and quite a good 
deal of theory but nothing to work with. 
hard to get. Here as elsewhere good re¬ 
liable men are working for themselves or 
have steady jobs. 
Orchard Cultivation. —The orchard 
had not been plowed for some time, and 
was a tangle of weeds and briars. When 
I found a man who would do it I told 
him to plow and harrow it and do a 
good job. He did, and his bill was .$70. 
That was all the orchard got that year, 
except that I had wires put around the 
little trees in the Fall to keep mice and 
rabbits away. The trees freshened up 
and made a good growth. Nearly a hun¬ 
dred of the trees had died, but there re¬ 
mained SO of the big Baldwins and about 
430 of the younger trees. So I was start¬ 
ing with an orchard of about 500 trees, 
healthy, but small for their age. 
Pruning. —The next year I got it 
plowed cheaper, but not so well. The 
man living in the house persuaded me 
the plowing until the end of May there 
was a good crop of weeds to turn under. 
Then by harrowing I tried to keep the 
ground mellow through June, and then it 
had to take care of itself. The big Bald¬ 
win trees yielded a small crop in 1009— 
I think about 40 barrels—and there were 
some apples each year after that. Then 
came the problem of handling, and mar¬ 
keting. 
Picking and Packing. —Pickers could 
be obtained, but skilled packers were 
very few, and they were employed by the 
large growers. One year I sold to a 
dealer operating in Gardiner for a dol¬ 
lar a barrel for A grade fruit, picked and 
delivered at his packing house. One year 
I tried having a gang of packers come 
to me before the orehardists were ready 
to pick, as my fruit colors early. I had 
a hundred barrels of beautiful fruit that 
year. I invested in barrels and paid a 
high price for packing, but there was no 
buyer at that time and quoted prices 
from New Y’ork were very low. I have a 
basement in my barn, and thought it best 
to store them and wait till some buyers 
appeared. We had a spell of very warm 
weather and when about five weeks after 
Happy Day for the Children on Lake George. See page 1301. 
terest in apple raising in our section. 
Both my brothers had put out Baldwin 
orchards, and it appealed to me as an in¬ 
vestment, which, though slow in its re¬ 
turns, would perhaps be profitable. So 
I had a hundred Baldwin trees s t out. 
They received indifferent care, but they 
grew slowly, and six years later, when 
I was home again, I had another hun¬ 
dred Baldwins set out, and two years 
later, in 1903, a mixed lot of trees, about 
400, bought at a bargain from a nursery¬ 
man who was selling out, was planted. 
They proved to be good varieties, Gano, 
Greening, King, and York Imperial. The 
trees occupied about 13 acres. The field 
is rolling, having two hills and two hol¬ 
lows in it, and is a gravelly loam, very 
gravelly, but there is swampy land on 
three sides of it, and I think there may 
oe some underground \water in the or- 
edard, as the trees seem to stand a 
drought better than trees in some other 
localities. The trees grew very slowly. 
A Prorlem in Management. —In 
190G I came home to live and the next 
year took charge of the farm and or¬ 
chard myself. It is about a quarter of 
a mile from my home. My experience in 
itself would be of no profit or interest to 
The farm had brought me in nothing dur¬ 
ing my ownership, but neither had it 
been any expense to me. The orchard, 
such as it was, had been planted and 
taken care of in lieu of rent. I was ad¬ 
vised to sell the place for a thousand 
dollars, but as I had taken it from my 
father's estate at a valuation of $3,000, 
it seemed to me that would be very poor 
business, and that I must at least bring 
it up to the original valuation. There 
was hope in the orchard, and I said, “I’ll 
try my hand at farming, though I may 
have to teach to pay expenses.” 
PASTURE Land. —About half the farm 
was pasture, with a never-failing brook. 
As this is a milk-raising section there 
was demand for pasture for dry stock. I 
rented it for $50 and later, by putting a 
fence across and making it into two small 
lots, for $00 a year. There remained 
three fields which I first had worked for 
the half by a neighbor, but it was dif¬ 
ficult to get anyone to do it, so I turned 
them into pasture too—rented for $30. 
I rented the little house to a single man 
who worked out by the day for $3 a 
month, and he was to work out the rent. 
All net income from the farm I expended 
on the orchard. Labor was dear and 
to let him sow buckwheat on shares. It 
was a poor plan. I got little from the 
buckwheat and the trees did not grow. 
So I decided that if I could not put much 
on the orchard, at least I would take 
nothing out, but apples. I sent for all 
the government bulletins and studied them 
carefully, not that I might follow them 
but to find as much justification as pos¬ 
sible for what I could do. I passed over 
directions for pruning and clung to the 
sentence that young orchards would bet¬ 
ter have too little than too much—and 
merely had the suckers cut out. I read 
various advice as to manuring and cover 
crops, but pinned my faith to the result 
of an elaborate experiment, in which the 
trees that received no fertilizer whatever 
did as well as the other plots that re¬ 
ceived various and sundry enrichment. 
One year I gave the orchard a light 
dressing of horse manure, and one year a 
thin sprinkling of wood ashes. The lat¬ 
ter I considered the most beneficial. But 
it was difficult and expensive to get 
either. It was only occasionally any 
could be secured in the neighborhood. So 
I decided to put all my money in plow¬ 
ing and spraying, and depend upon the 
weeds to furnish humus. By delaying 
they were picked a buyer came to look at 
them they were specked and he said would 
all have to be rehandled. I sold them for 
$1.40 a barrel, which gave me about 75 
cents for the fruit. I decided the best way 
for me to do was to sell in the orchard. 
Baldwin and Gano. —In 1913 I had 
quite a crop of Baldwin and Gano. I 
estimated 400 barrels. The dealer who 
came to look at them said he thought I 
had estimated the crop too high. I asked 
$400. After some demurring he bought 
them. He packed up 550 barrels of No. 1 
fruit, and that year my brother sold his 
apples, no better than mine, for $3 f.'o.b. 
I have no grievance against the dealer, 
for he gave me what I asked. That was 
the first year the orchard had brought me 
in anything over expenses. I had $250 
net and I took it and spent it. 
A Small Crop. —In 1914 there was 
as big a show of blossoms as the previous 
year, more of the young trees coming into 
bearing, and the fruit set well, but the 
extreme dry weather made it very small, 
more than half being under 2]£ inches. 
Prices were low, and there were no buy¬ 
ers. Late in the season I sold to a neigh¬ 
bor who has a storehouse, for 75 cents a 
(Concluded on page 1301.) 
