“May 13, 1906 
‘Orchard Cultivation. 
o———— 
Mr. A. Moors. 
This subject is as important for the growth 
and health of the young trees as winter and 
etc., are {0° the 
summer pruning and spraying, 
t on the trees; 
growth and quality of the frui 
and asan orchardist cannot expect trees to fruit 
well, and at the same time to be of good quality, 
without intelligent pruning, training, and spray- 
ing, neither can he expect to have good, strong, 
healthy trees without generous cultivation. We 
hotice in some gardens young trees planted, and 
from that time left. good deal to themselves, 
but not to their advantage. Such trees are 
usually very poor compared to those in An 
orchard that has been well cultivated at different 
times with plough or spade. I say spade, becanse 
& good deal of cultivation isdone with the spade 
or fork in the hills, where it is almost impo-sible 
to get a plough to work in some places, owing 
to steepness. _ The ough, when it can possibly 
be used, is the best ; Lut there is a difference of 
opitiion as to what kind of plough is the most 
suitable. The objection to the garden plough is 
thav if some soils it is unsatisfactory, owing to 
its short mouldboard, which pulver:ses well in a 
loogé’ suitable gol, where there is not much 
grass; but in a stiff soil, with grass, it drags 
and dves not bury the grass. The long mould- 
“Poard’ field’ plough does better work in most 
soils, aid buries «ll the grass’and weéds. ‘There 
isnot much danger of oyer-cultivation in most 
kinds of trees, especially orchards from one to 
six or seve’ years of age. To pay the cost of 
the cultivation a good plan is to crop the land 
between the trees. This can be done for some 
yeurs without hurting the trees, taking care to 
Kéep the crop a reat onablé distance from them. 
Peas and vetelies are both useful, as they leave 
uw certain amotnt’ of nitrogen in the ground 
One objection is that they get close around the 
trees. anu’ have to be hocd away after coming 
up, The best crép for the hills’ is potatoes, 
ug they can:be planted well away from the trees, 
Which are‘benefited in the same proportion as 
the crop of potatoes is benefited by cultivation. 
Av orchard under this method can be made to 
pay all planting expenses and cultivation ex- 
pouses until the time it comes into bearing, say 
five or six years. ‘Trees cultivated and eropped 
in this manner do not show any signs of having 
¢vo niuch nutriment extracted from the ground, 
but the reverse, as, owing to the intense cultiva- 
tion, they thrive wonderfully. In orchards that 
are sivuated 1n very, damp ground, and inclined 
to be flat, and hard to drain, it is agood plan to 
work the soil up towards the line of trees for a 
year or two, 80 that it slopes off towards the 
centre of the row, and drains the line of trees. 
Trees in dawp soil do not thrive as well as those 
on higher ground. Afver ano chard has reached 
the age of 10 or 12 years and older, difficulty is 
experienced in working the plough with any 
degree of satisfuction, and anything that will 
enable the plough to work up clese to the trees 
is a.great consideration, as it makes less digging 
in butween the rows of trees. In a large orchard 
digging a wide strip is fairly. expensive, and 
although some digging-is necessary, the less tho 
better. 1 haye found it a splendid plan to put 
the crdinary single feed plough on one extreme 
end of a long harrows swig, putting the harrow 
centre, or as close to t 
“of digging, and brings down t 
‘superior wrapping. 
putting the horse ‘in the 
he centré a8 will balance 
By this means One 
on the other end, . and 
the plotigh and harrow. 
man to plough, and one man to drive the horses 
(two horses are necessary), can plough an orchard 
quite comfortably, and get qttite close to the 
trees, no matter how mitch they spread, and the 
plough does not require more than the ordinary 
holding, owing to the draught. being central. 
The horses walk up the centre, turn after turn, 
scarcely touching the trees, and, in addition to 
ploughing, a certain portion is being harrowéd 
atthe sametime. This saves a wonderful amount 
he éxpense of cul- 
tivation very considerably. 
Atachine- wrapped 
Oruinges. 
We have the following aiditional information 
about this device in a Florida, U.S A., paper :— 
the advent of California oranges into th® 
markets wrapped with labels bearing the stamp: 
6 Machine-wrapped frnit, not handled by hand,” 
snakes information about the type of machine 
especially interesting. 
The machine is attached to the end of the 
grader, and receives the oranges direct. [t is 
simple in operation, compact, and_ perfectly 
automatic. 1b receives the fruit on an endless 
chain attached to which are a series of cups, felt- 
Jined and separated by rubber partitions. The 
wrsppers are cut from a roll, after the manner 
of a perfecting printing press, and, after being 
printed, are cut the desired. size, when they are 
ready for the orange. A unique device twists 
the paper perfectly tight about the orange, which 
js held in place at the top by a rubber- plunger, 
while the other end rests on a felt-topped rod. 
The ends of the orange are in this position, 
and so closely is the orange wrapped that it is 
believed it will be practically impervious to’ 
moisture. ; 
A feature of! the machine’ that will appeal to 
packing: hoiise men'lies iu the fact that'a suialler- 
s zed piper can be used than in hind: wrapping. 
Thus; a uine-by-nine wrapper wotld be used on 
the mechine, while 12 hand: wrapping a ten-by- 
ten wrapper would be required A saving of 2U) 
per cent. of paper is claimed ag well as far 
Another advantage would 
lie in the fact that no large stock of assorted 
wrappers would be required, singe the machine 
can be adjusted’ to any size, and the roll paper 
only would be 1:eeded. The printing of wrappers 
would also be done away with, singe the printing 
is a part of the wrapping process. : 
To prove that the machine will not mar the 
skin of the'fruit, eggs: have -been run through 
thé machine and wrapped without cracking a’ 
shell! 
The machine wraps 72 oranges a minute, or 
40,0L0 pieces of fruit every ten hours. 1t would 
wrap-a carload in one and one-half days. For 
the ordinary packing-house, five machines would 
be necessary to handle the fruit. 
“Practically all the packers in the city have 
inspected the machine, and all are enthusiastic 
over its possibilities. se a ok 
With labor a scarce and high-priced’ com+ 
modity. in California, this invention ought 'td be 
“a great factor in finking the citrus businéss. pay 
‘EYED + Be 
i&¢ 
better profits, 
the curve repres 
. Gorn, B. J /Howanp. 
- Details aré°giveii of an extended vinyestiga- 
tion on the chemical changes which take place 
in the storage, respiration, and growth of apples 
and on the insoluble carbohydrates. or marc of 
apples. The results of. microscopic and. macro- 
scopic examinations of apple starch are, also 
given. , Preliminary to. the experimental details 
an, extensive review is given of the work on. the 
ripening and respiration of fruits as observed by 
many other investigators. 
Inthe present work the varieties Ben Davis, 
Bough, Early Strawberry, Huntsmaiu » Northern 
Spy, Rhode Island, Winesap, Winter Paradise. 
and Yellow Transparent were used. “These are 
described and thé nature of the soil on which 
they were grown noted. Analyses ‘are given of 
these varieties when picked at-different datas 
and when held in common storage and. cold 
storage. From the results secured in this work 
it appears “thatthe changes in composition 
(the content of starch, sugar, and acids) in cold 
sturage do not gréatly, differ from those which 
occur in common storage, the chief difference 
being in the rapidity with which the changes 
take place.” 
The results of respiration experiments with 
apples in common and cold storage indicate that 
the fruit kept in common storage at the higher 
temperature ripened much more rapidly than 
that kept in cold storage. In comparing the 
ammount of carbon dioxid eliminated from the 
fruit in these experiments with th» malic-acid 
curve, it did not seem possible that the carbon 
dioxid could be accounted for by the disappe wr- 
ance of malic acid, as some other authors hive 
considered to be the casé. _ 
“Qnthe other hand, the curve representing 
the content of total carbohydrates, expressed as 
invert sugar, is approximately the revurse of 
enting the evolution of carbou 
dioxid. Tne probability that the carbon dioxid 
results from tte decomposition of carbohydrate 
bodies is strengthened by the fact that after 
protracted storage the apple has appazeatly lost 
vitality, and changes in composition proceed 
much more slowly than. in the early days of 
storage.’ 
In considering the growth of apples, the 
work. was not begun until after the “ June’ 
drop’? was’ over. It was found in this work 
that the less mature the fruit is when gathered 
the more’ rapid are tho changes tending to 
maturity after picking. It would seem, there- 
fore, that from a commercial st indpoint apples 
which are fairly mature my be expected to 
retain a more constant compositiou than those 
picked im an immature state.” 
The ditferences in the chemical changes which 
veeur in the growth of winter and summer 
upples are traced in considerable detail. It was 
found that green apples ordinarilyinature much 
more rapidly when stored thu wen left on the 
tree and that the apples picked the earliest 
mature more rapidly than those pickel at wx 
later date. ‘Lhe methods of analysis followed by 
the authors in this work are given in detail, 
" together with metho Is followed by other inves« 
tigators along the same line. 
Tp the work on the insoluble carboltydrates 
or marc in apples a review: is given of the 
characteristics of pectin bodies as ‘observe by 
many other investigators with different fruits 
and vegetables. A table is given showing the 
results of analyses by the authors of applé maro. 
In the microscopic ant macroscopic oxamina- 
tions of apple starch it was found thit the sias 
