American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man'’-Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
Established 1842 
Volume 112 
For the Week Ending September 15, 1923 
Number 11 
Nature Abhors a Vacancy 
Either m the Mmd or in the Orchard—Empty Spaces Cost Money 
T HE other day I was walking through 
a large bearing-apple orchard roughly 
appraising it upon the order of an 
interested third party. The asked 
price was $65,000 for the fifty-some acres, 
which price included the buildings and equip¬ 
ment and some extra land. 
And while my appraisal was something 
under $40,000 for the whole, I had to ac¬ 
knowledge that there was quite a generous 
pei centage of tnese apple trees richly worth 
$1,000 per acre, being just coming into prime 
age, and of the best 
market varieties. The 
balance of the acreage 
was younger, by* vari¬ 
ous stages, down to 
some ten acres, but 
three or four years set. 
But I also had to ac¬ 
knowledge one severely 
adverse feature — the 
determining of ivhich 
cost me two-thirds of 
my day; the parts 
worth $1,000 per acre 
averaged slightly un¬ 
der twenty-two trees 
per acre notwith¬ 
standing they were 
laid out^ thirty-six feet 
apart each way, or 
thirty trees per acre 
(allowing for aisles) 
this twenty-seven per 
cent waste space rep¬ 
resenting vacancies— 
past which the expen¬ 
sive spraying machin¬ 
ery had to be hauled 
and over which all till¬ 
age tools passed—in 
vain, a dead loss at ex¬ 
actly the poink where 
every commercial or¬ 
chardist looks for his net income plus a bit 
of velvet on successful years. 
Instantly I saw where lay the cause of 
this orchard being for sale and why its hard¬ 
working and otherwise efficient owner had 
put in half a lifetime without once really 
getting ahead of the game. All these years 
le had been putting in good money on those 
empty spaces—all but the harvesting labor 
for what % on a baseball score, would be 
tnarked by “goose eggs”—no runs! No 
uonest business man can long stand up under 
^ > per cent annual losses, and mighty few 
under five per cent! 
Still wondering and astonished, further 
questioning upon the cause brought out the 
iact that, the first ten to fifteen years, these 
bearing acres had carried a nearly 100 per 
cent stand of trees. Then the owner dug 
0llt those now gone because they had proved, 
as came into bearing, not true to name 
ancl generally valueless. He had never be¬ 
come fore-handed enough to afford the five 
• ° te ^ dollars per tree expense of top-work- 
3 by grafting, but instead had 
-olved the problem in this fatal way. 
By DAVID STONE KELSEY 
If the above were an isolated case or even 
unusual it would not be so serious: but it is 
a fact that many farm orchards contain just 
as many holes—not only twenty-five, but even 
fifty per cent waste space; and equally often, 
and worse, waste trees are filling those spaces 
which should be filled with profitable bear¬ 
ing trees. It is true this man made a mis¬ 
take in not top-grafting, but his original 
mistake was in his choice of a nurseryman, 
vacAneieis, p fist which the expensive spray machinery had to be hauled, and over which tillage tools 
in vain a dead loss—.” In the orchard here pictured, the grower appreciates “the dead loss ot va! 
cancies and has set a young tree, which in a few years, will fill the void 
and this article is intended as a warning on 
that point, which is especially timely just 
now. There has been a comparative dearth 
of new orchards planted during and since 
the Great War. Prices on good nursery 
stock are still high, but it is certain that as 
returning prosperity comes, many of our 
Eastern States farmers will soon be buying 
again and planting on a large scale. At this 
very moment there is a barrel of money being- 
made by the more thorough-going Eastern 
oichaidists. I said thorough-going with 
greatest reason, for these men began with 
thoroughness—in the selection of their nurs¬ 
ery stock and their nurseryman. 
First “Catch. Your Kabbit” 
There is an old English recipe book which 
begins its direction for making a rabbit pie 
with these words: “First catch your rabbit,” 
and similarly the intending orchardist should 
first visit and get acquainted with his nurs¬ 
eryman. Never buy nursery stock until you 
have looked its. grower in the eye, walked 
over his plantation, and questioned him care¬ 
fully, not merely about the varieties he car¬ 
ries and recommends, but upon his methods 
of preventing mistakes, and above all the 
sources of his scions and stock buds. Prefer¬ 
ably we buy of a nurseryman who is him¬ 
self an orchardist. A practical, successful 
fruit grower very rarely sells poor grade 
nursery stock, and I have never known one 
to sell spurious stock. They are not only 
honest, but heroic, consigning many wagon 
loads of tolerably saleable trees to the brush 
pile during the spring season of each year. 
And second, other things being equal, we 
buy of the nearest 
nurseryman — very 
rarely- going out of the 
county where our trees 
are to be set. Even a 
somewhat crafty or 
unscrupulous nursery¬ 
man will hesitate to sell 
poor or unwarranted 
trees to an acquaint¬ 
ance or man from a 
neighboring town. He 
will not even advise 
him to set “big” trees 
just because he him¬ 
self wishes to sell these. 
On the other hand, 
the honest nurseryman 
will not be beaten down 
from his price, and it 
is only the most foolish 
or'inexperienced plant¬ 
er who will attempt it. 
He had far better 
smilingly pay full 
rates, but maintaining 
firmly his demand for 
the very highest qual¬ 
ity and guarantees. 
Would you feel safe 
in calling a man 
thoroughgoing in his 
business methods who 
felt pleased at saving, let us say, fifteen cents 
on a nursery tree, knowing that tree would 
in a few years be richly worth forty dollars 
if good and nothing if bad? Yet such is hu- 
ntan nature. The average man seems de¬ 
lighted to save at the spigot and lose at the 
bung-hole almost any time. 
I know of nothing more unsatisfactory 
than the fruit nursery business as it has been 
the last eight years. About the only money 
most nurseryman have made has been in 
shade trees, shrubs and other plants. Some 
also have made money with small fruits, but 
all. have lost on tree fruits, even though the 
price has seemed exorbitant. 
In our market-gardening we often pay, 
let us say for cucumber seed, fifteen dollars 
a pound, while our competitors are buying 
for one dollar and ten cents; but in the 
marketing season that extra ten dollars per 
acre, brings us probably not less than one 
hundred dollars more than we would have 
received from the use of the cheaper seed. 
Similarly, wouldn’t it pay to lay out an ex¬ 
tray five or ten dollars per acre to buy only 
{Continued on page 176 ) 
