FRUIT INTERESTS OF THE STATE. 
19 
*• 
the preceding, and the orchard has not yet reached its 
most productive age. 
AVhen the writer visited this orchard, late in Septem¬ 
ber, early varieties had been harvested. Late peaches and 
apples were still on the trees, and served as an index to 
the general productiveness. The branches were bending 
to the ground, loaded to their utmost capacity with large, 
highly-colored fruits. Both fruits and trees were entirely 
free from the marks of disease or of insects, and in gen¬ 
eral, the orchard exhibited that thriftiness and cleanness 
of trunk and branch which is characteristic of well cared 
for orchards in Colorado. 
At Whitewater, on the Gunnison, eight miles above 
Grand Junction, are a number of fine orchards ; among 
them those of Mr. J. S. Coffman, Mr. J. S. Penniston and 
Mr. R. W. Shropshire. 
Mr. Shropshire began planting in 1883. In 1885 he 
made some additions, bringing the number of trees up 
to 1,335, divided as follows : 
Apples, 1,250; pears, 35 ; cherries, 50 ; these are all 
now in bearing. 
In 1890 he enlarged his orchard to sixty acres, and 
planted 2,040 apple trees, assorting the varieties as fol¬ 
lows : 
Ben Davis, 1,040; Northern Spy, 500; Mann, 500. 
In the earlier planting were 250 each of Rhode Island 
Greening, King, Scott’s Winter and Missouri Pippin, and 
thirty each of Wolf River, Utter’s Red, Ben Davis, Wine- 
sap, Haas, Bellflower and Oldenburg. 
When asked regarding productiveness, Mr. Shropshire 
gave me an example, taken from his orchard in 1890. Of 
several Ben Davis trees equally well loaded with fruit, he 
selected one, carefully picked all the fruit, measured and 
weighed it, and found the yield to be sixteen bushels. 
