"7 
116 
American Agriculturist, February IQ, 1923 
Learn the truth about Fertili2er 
'//*|| V- '> 
Commercial fertilizer is not magic. It is no 
substitute for work, or for farming brains. It will not 
make a successful farmer out of a shiftless, ignorant 
failure. Fertilizer varies in quality like corn or to¬ 
bacco or cotton, and some brands are Worth more 
than others. GoOd fertilizers, like Royster's reli¬ 
able old mixtures, are a godsend to good farmers 
who learn how to best use them to make money. 
I 
Nearly forty years experience enters into 
the making of the Royster mixtures, and hundreds 
of thousands of the country’s best farmers pin their 
faith to this famous old brand. 
For advice about the use of fertilizer, write 
to Farm Service Department, F. S. Royster Guano 
Company, Baltimore, Md. 
ROYSTER 
/^/</ l^ted “^rtiliTers 
For Good Plowing 
Choose E-B 
The size and quality of your crops depend first on a 
good seed bed. The soil must be plowed to an equzd 
depth. The E-B Foot Lift Sulky Plow makes 4his an 
easy job—easy on the driver, easy on the team. It is 
light draft because plow is more compact and carried 
on higher wheels; is closer to the team and wheel 
bearings are better lubricated. 
Powerful foot levers enable driver to lift the plow 
from the furrow or force it into the ground leaving 
hands free to handle the team. Equipped with E-B 
Quick Detachable Shares, the only shares that can 
be put on or taken off entirely with the hands—no 
bolts, nuts or tools needed. Changed in 5 seconds 
Enables you to do sharp share plowing at all times, 
saving delays and speeding up the plowing. 
See this Plow at your E-B dealer's or 
write us for free illustrated literature. 
Emerson-Brantingham Implement Co* 
INCORPORATED 
Businsss Founded 18 S 2 - ROCKFORD. ILLINOIS 
Branches at Dallas, St. Louis, Nashville 
New 
, White 
I Annual 
Sweet 
i Clover 
Big 
Money 
iGrewi^l 
1 Hubam 
lUBAM 
1 Every farmer ^onld knew 7 
I about Hubam. Our seed reeleaBea 
I and certified, absolutelv dependa blOt 
I Prices lowest yet. Write tor FREE 
I SAMPLES and 116-page catalog de- 
I scribing this wonderful crop, .We 
I carry a complete eCocfc of aH aeeoa* 
a. A. Barry 8«sd Co., Box lois OlarInils. Iowa 
. SEED OATS 
Test 36 to 38 lbs. Carload lots or less. Also Early 
SEED CORK. Med. Red, Mammoth, Alsike, Alfalfa, 
Sweet Clover and Timothy Seed. Get our circular 
and prices before buying. THEO. BURT & SONS, Melrose, Ohio 
Reclaiming Old Orchards 
Winter Work That Pays in Money and Satisfaction 
SEED POTATOES 
Dibble’s Russet and Ho. 9. 
Bnrtoa K. Xstoh, Oehocton, K. T. 
B ack of almost every farm in New 
York State there is on old farm- 
home apple orchard. In many cases 
neglected it stands or rather “sprawls,” 
for years a home eyesore, and a neigh¬ 
borhood “lodging house” of orchard 
pests innumerable and costly, a source 
of annoyance and loss. Experience 
shows that it can in many cases be 
reclaimed profitably to real value and 
beauty. Apple picking and corn har¬ 
vesting accomplished, the cattle safely 
housed in the cold months, and a good 
start on the woodpile, why not give 
the old orchard a good chance—a fight¬ 
ing chance if it is worth it at all. If 
not, coal is high this winter, and apple 
wood is good fuel. 
To trim or not to trim—^that is the 
question. If there is a large per cent 
of fairly sound and thrifty trees in 
the orchard and most of these are of 
some commercial value, it pays to trim. 
If not already in the tool house, we 
will need on the job 
according to hands, 
two good pruning 
saws (single edged, 
one long and one 
short), pruning 
shears of best qual¬ 
ity and a pole 
shears or pole-saw; 
also, a strong light 
ladder 18 to 24 
feet long. 
For oU trees, the 
earlier you get at 
the job in the 
winter, the better. 
The pruning of 
younger trees may 
be put off until 
early spring or 
maybe late winter. 
Choose if possible, 
clear cold weather. 
First, if your or¬ 
chard is “brambly” 
and encumbered 
with many dead 
and fallen limbs 
“clear the decks.” 
Why not at once 
cut out and remove 
the trees you wisely 
decide are not worth the work in view? 
Cut out all the deadwood to start 
with. Then remove all broken and 
diseased limbs, clear to the main stem 
or at least to a “lateral” branch. 
Next, starting at the top and working 
around in the natural tiers of the 
tree’s framework, take out large or 
small interfering and overlapping 
branches, always sawing your limbs off 
in such a way that there is no chance 
that its falling will make a bad tear 
in the tree near the point of issue. 
Do not prune all the wood off the lower 
branches', or the lower branches them¬ 
selves, unless in the way when culti¬ 
vating or harvesting, and do not cut 
all the small fruiting branches off the 
middle of the tree—just to make a 
“neat job.” 
We trim trees chiefly to open them 
up to light and air. Never remove a 
branch needlessly, even if it cramps the 
woodpile. Water sprouts are a nui¬ 
sance, but even they may be turned into 
apple blessings. Space the best sprouts 
as they come, about two feet apart, 
and cut them back liberally about a 
third or half with your shears and 
they will make in time your new fruit¬ 
ing wood and part of a new frame¬ 
work. 
Cut your top down gradually if it 
is inconveniently tall. Go on gradually 
with the whole pruning job—two or 
three years at least, following a long 
period of neglect and abuse. Get the 
best bulletins from your county agent. 
Attend, if possible, a pruning field 
demonsitration. “Saw wood' and say 
nothing.” 
Spray and Fertilize 
When you have trimmed all the 
trees, clean out, disinfect and patch up 
any bad trunk-holes, give the entire 
lot of trees in the orchard a good but 
gentle scraping with the business end 
of an hoe. Hitch up Tom and Jerry 
to the spray wagon, fill it up with dor¬ 
mant spray, and give your “tramps” 
a thoroughly liberal shower. In early 
spring plow shallow or disk thoroughly, 
• 
spreading on and harrowing in a good 
coat of barnyard manure or turning in 
the pigs. 
When the late spring “blow” begins 
to fall, shoot the codling moth worm 
spray at them. Agent will give you 
details—“please be brief.” That’s 
about all there is to it—on paper. And, 
you’ve done something. You will think 
so when those old oi'chards come back 
at you in the fall, and with a little 
judicious “thinning” also of fruit, you’ll 
have apples in quantity and quality 
from that same orchard, that will make 
you sit up nights—eating. 
A well-made bridge graft—a means 
of saving valuable young trees girdled 
by mice and rabbits 
REPAIRING BROKEN TREE 
CROTCH 
Heavy apple and pear crops this 
last season taxed the strength of the 
trees, and where the heavily-laden 
branches were not braced, considerable 
breakage took 
place. This was 
particularly true 
of the rapidly 
growing trees 
which had not been 
trimmed during 
the first few years 
in a way to avoid 
weak crotches. 
Where cracking 
has taken place or 
danger seems im¬ 
minent of splitting, 
some means of 
guying should be 
employed to pre¬ 
vent further dam¬ 
age. The method 
to follow varies 
so much with dif¬ 
ferent ti'ees that 
it is impossible to 
follow any one set 
rule. 
One of the sim¬ 
plest yet efficient 
means of guying 
a crotch is to in¬ 
sert a hook bolt 
through each limb. 
The hook bolts are 
placed in two limbs with the hooks to¬ 
ward each other. The height above the 
crotch depends upon the size, position 
and_ length of the limbs. Seldom is it 
advisable to have them nearer than 6 
feet to the crotch, while they may be as 
far from the junction of the limbs as 
8 or 10 feet. The end link of a stout 
chain is placed over one of the hooks, 
while the other hook catches a link in 
the chain which comes at the right 
place to make the bracing sufficiently 
taut to keep the limbs from parting. 
The remainder of the chain can be cut 
away. 
Where there are three or four join¬ 
ing limbs which must be guyed to¬ 
gether, a good method is to place a 
hook bolt through each limb at the 
proper place, pointing the hooks to¬ 
ward the center of the tree. Each hook 
is used to hold the end link of the two 
chains, one going from the hook to 
the nearest limb on the right and the 
other to the nearest limb on the left. 
Where the guy must be kept perfectly 
taut at all times a turn-buckle rod or 
another bolt is better than a chain. 
The rod also permits tightening of the 
g’uy should it later become necessary. 
A long bolt is more servicable also 
than a chain if the guy must be made 
within a foot or so of the crotch. 
The bolt or rod used must be thick 
enough to fit snugly in the hole bored 
through the limb and must project a 
quarter to a half inch beyond the 
washer at the end. The thread of the 
bolt must also be long enough to per¬ 
mit the drawing in of the bolt as the 
nuts are screwed up tight against the 
washer. At the end of the job all of 
the exposed parts of the bolt, nuts and 
wood should be tarred to prevent infec¬ 
tion of the tree and damage to the 
wood. _ 
Look in the box that holds the corn 
just before you turn the planter to 
start on another round. This beats 
running back across the field for the 
sack of corn when boxes become empty 
at the other side of the field. 
