Grow Your Own Fruit 
WHY AND HOW YOU SHOULD PICK APPLES, PLUMS, PEACHES, PEARS AND CHERRIES 
EROM YOUR OWN TREES—THE BEST VARIETIES AND TYPES OF EACH TO SELECT 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Photographs by E. F. Hall and others 
\Mr. Rockwell’s series of articles that appeared last year in these pages, under the title “Grow Your Own Vegetables,” met with so many 
expressions of appreciation that we are doubly glad to follow it with three articles on an equally important phase of the home garden. The second 
article, to appear next month, will tell of planting young stock, cultivation methods, the use of green and other fertilisers, etc . — Editor.] 
1 KNOW a doctor in New 
York, a specialist, who 
has attained prominence in his 
profession, and who makes a 
large income; he tells me that 
there is nothing in the city that 
hurts him so much as to have 
to pay out a nickel whenever 
he wants an apple. His boy¬ 
hood home was on a Pennsyl¬ 
vania farm, where apples were 
as free as water, and he can¬ 
not get over the idea of their 
being one of Nature’s gracious 
gifts, any more than he can 
overcome his hankering for 
that crisp, juicy, uncloying 
flavor of a good apple, which 
is not quite equaled by the taste 
of any other fruit. 
And yet it is not the saving 
in expense, although that is 
considerable, that makes the 
strongest argument for grow¬ 
ing one’s own fruit. There are 
three other reasons, each of 
more importance. First is 
quality. The commercial 
grower cannot offord to grow 
the very finest fruit. Many of 
the best varieties are not large enough yielders 
to be available for his use, and he cannot, on a 
large scale, so prune and care for his trees 
that the individual fruits receive the greatest 
possible amount of sunshine and thinning out — 
the personal care that is required for the very 
best quality. Second, there is the beauty and 
the value that well kept fruit trees add to a 
place, no matter how small it is. An apple 
tree in full bloom is one of the most beautiful 
pictures that Nature ever paints; and if, 
through any train of circumstances, it ever be¬ 
comes advisable to sell or rent the home, its 
desirability is greatly enhanced by the few 
trees necessary to furnish the loveliness of 
showering blossoms in spring, welcome shade 
in summer and an abundance of delicious 
fruits through autumn and winter. Then 
there is the fun of doing it — of planting and 
caring for a few young trees, which will re¬ 
ward your labors, in a cumulative way, for 
many years to come. 
But enough of reasons. If the “call of the 
soil’’ is in your veins, if your 
fingers (and your brain) in the 
springtime itch to have a part 
in earth’s ever-wonderful re¬ 
nascence, if your lips part at 
the thought of the white, firm, 
toothsome flesh of a ripened- 
on-the-tree red apple—then 
you must have a home orchard 
without a month’s delay. 
And it’s not a difficult task. 
The stone fruits, fortunately, 
are not very particular about 
their soils. They take kindly 
to anything between a sandy 
soil so loose as to be almost 
“shifting,” and heavy clay. 
Even these soils can be made 
available, but of course, not 
without more work. And you 
don’t need a whole farm to 
have room enough for all the 
fruit your family can possibly 
eat. 
Time was, when to speak of 
an apple tree brought to mind 
one of those old, moss-barked 
giants that served as a car¬ 
riage shed and a summer din¬ 
ing-room, decorated with 
scythes and rope swings, requiring the services 
of a forty-foot ladder and a long handled “pick¬ 
er” to gather the fruit. That day is gone. 
In its stead have come the low-headed stand¬ 
ard and the dwarf forms. The new types 
came as new 1 institutions usually do, under pro¬ 
test. The wise said they would never be prac¬ 
tical — the trees would not get large enough 
and teams couldn't be driven under them. But 
the facts remained that the low trees are more 
easily and thoroughly cared for; that they do 
not take up so much room; that they are less 
exposed to high winds, and such fruit as does 
fall is not injured; that the low limbs shelter 
the roots and conserve moisture; and, above 
all, that picking can be accomplished much 
more easily and with less injury to fine, well- 
ripened fruit. The low-headed tree has come 
to stay. 
If your space will allow, the low-headed 
standards will give you better satisfaction than 
the dwarfs. They are longer lived, they are 
healthier, and they do not require nearly so 
You can grow better fruit in your own garden than you can buy 
VEGETABLE 
GAR OEM 
A suggested arrangement of fruit 
trees on the small place: i— 
Apples, 2—Peaches, 3—Cherries, 
4—Quinces, 5—Plums, 6—Pears 
(89) 
