American Agriculturist, May 17, 1924 
| After Fifteen Years I Review 
Some Orchard Mistakes 
John D. Nevin 
I T may be of some help, to those about 
to take up commercial apple-growing, 
to recount a few of the many mistakes 
which I made in establishing my orchards; 
and also to state that prior to fruit¬ 
growing my experience had been confined 
to water and not land. 
My first orchard, some ten acres, was 
set out in the spring of 1909, the trees 
planted thirty-six feet apart, making 
thirty-one trees to the acre. The trees 
were bought from a reliable nursery of 
excellent reputation. They were good 
trees, clean, well-grown, with good root 
systems and supposed to be two years old. 
But I made the mistake of buying only 
one variety and planting a solid block of 
ten acres with this one variety. No 
thought of cross-pollenation entered my 
head. This might have resulted in a 
nonproductive orchard as the trees were 
not a self-fertile variety, but beginner’s 
luck saved it, and in this way. The trees 
grew and prospered and eventually came 
into bearing when it was discovered that 
one hundred of the trees were of a differ¬ 
ent variety than had been ordered. It 
paid to buy from a reliable nursery. 
Intelligent Planting Paid 
Two years later I set out another or¬ 
chard. In the meantime I had learned 
that varieties should be alternated, every 
other row or two rows of a different 
variety to aid pollenation, and to plant 
a yearling tree. Before setting out this 
second orchard I wrote to the State 
College of Agriculture asking for help 
and they sent on the Professor of Hor¬ 
ticulture, an authority on apples, who 
spent the day studying conditions on the 
farm and gave me a list of apples suited 
to my soil, climate, and market. I 
attribute the success of the orchard in 
great measure to his wise counsel. This 
was the late Doctor John P. Stewart, of 
Pennsydvania State College. 
Acting on his advice I bought one year 
whips and asked the nursery company 
the age of the trees I had bought from 
them before. Their reply, “four years,” 
astonished me and I looked forward to 
failure in my first venture; but, after 
fifteen years, they are bearing well though 
not as heavily as the orchard planted two 
years later. So much for the mistakes of 
age and planting. 
Mistakes in Heading and Pruning 
The next mistake was in the form or 
shape of the trees. They had been headed 
low and trained to the open-center or vase 
form, very popular at that time, but a 
type that I found structurally weak, 
subject to serious breakage, and with a 
limited bearing surface. A severe ice- 
storm in December, 1914, broke down 
nearly twenty per cent, of the open-center 
trees in the orchard. There is also much 
breakage accompanying heavy bearing 
unless propping is resorted to. I believe 
better results are obtained from the 
modified leader type; it is stronger, gives 
a maximum bearing surface, and should a 
main branch be lost the space is soon filled 
by the spread of the remaining branches. 
Another change that I would make is in 
regard to pruning. I am convinced from 
the results in a later orchard that the 
bearing of the first block of trees was 
belayed three or more years by excessive 
beading back. A block of trees not headed 
back—in fact, not pruned at all after the 
second year—bore apples the fourth sum¬ 
mer and is showing strong buds for a fair 
erop the coming season. The heavily 
pruned orchards (cultural conditions 
were the same in each case) bore no 
apples before the eighth year and then 
only a sprinkling. The orchards in which 
1 have practised “long pruning,” nothing 
more nor less than light thinning out of 
superfluous wood, have borne crops thirty 
to forty per cent, heavier than heavily 
pruned trees. 
Another mistake affecting the returns 
from the orchards was in growing crops 
between the rows instead of planting 
475 
l 
Every Farm Needs Some 
Modem Equipment 
T HE continued use of worn-out 
and out-of-date equipment is 
costing the farmers of the United 
States millions of dollars annually. 
Carefully prepared statistics show that 
many farmers are paying, over and 
over again, for improved equipment 
they do not own. The United States 
Department of Agriculture says that 
over-repaired, inefficient machines 
and implements are losing their 
owners more than the cost of new 
tools, through scant yield and loss of 
labor and time in preparing seed beds, 
planting, cultivating, and harvesting 
the crops. 
competitors would undersell him and 
force him into bankruptcy. 
The fanner should think in exactly 
such terms regarding his food-factory 
and his equipment. He should check 
over his farming investment and drop 
every old method and every old 
machine as soon as he has evidence 
that he could save or make more money 
with a newer method or an improved 
machine. He should learn, as every 
successful manufacturer has learned, 
that the value of a piece of equipment 
should never be measured by its price but 
by what it will do for him—by what it 
will earn and save and make . 
The wise American manufacturer 
does not hesitate to replace equipment 
the moment such equipment is out of 
date. He must keep his costs down 
with the others, or lower, and his pro¬ 
duction up with the others, or higher. 
If he did not modernize his plant, his 
Help the Farm to Earn More 
Greater profit on the farm can be 
made possible through careful planning 
and management, diversification, seed 
testing, fertilization, saving of labor 
and time, and increased yield. Farm 
equipment is the big factor concerned in each 
of these details . It made agriculture great; 
it will make agriculture still greater. 
There is probably not a farm in the United States that 
could not be improved from a money-making stand* 
point by the purchase of some modem equipment. 
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Mowers 
Hay Rakes 
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Combined Side Rakes and 
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Baling Presses 
Com Planters 
Listers 
Com Cultivators 
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Corn Shelters 
Ensilage Cutters 
Huskdrs and Shredders 
Huskers and Silo Fillers 
Beet Seeders 
Beet Cultivators 
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Cotton Planters 
Grain Drills 
Lime Sowers 
Broadcast Seeders 
Tractor Plows 
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Disk Harrows 
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Peg-Tooth Harrows 
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One-Horse Cultivators 
Culti-Packers 
Kerosene Engines 
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Manure Spreaders 
Stalk Cutters 
Feed Grinders 
Stone Burr Mills 
Cane Mills 
Potato Diggers 
Wagons 
Twine 
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fillers. The crops barely paid for the 
cultivation, while in the later orchards 
one crop from the peach fillers paid for 
the entire planting. I prefer peach to 
apple fillers because of quicker returns, 
and in my soil the peaches do not live 
long enough to injure the apples. 
To sum up, then, in my opinion, my 
most glaring mistakes have been: Plant¬ 
ing a solid block of one variety; planting 
trees, more than one year old; too much 
heading in; training to an open-center 
instead of a stronger type; not planting 
fillers. If I had consulted an expert in 
the beginning these mistakes might have 
been avoided. 
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