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Show BY THEIR FRUITS THEY ARE KNOWN (continued) BY DAVID GLEN WRIGHT FARMERS AND NIM RODS ALL Apple trees are fertilized with amonium sulfate and other fruits with amonium nitrate. Nearly all the orchardists follow the Washington State (U.S.A.) spray guide. Hand thinning of the fruit is being replaced by spraying the blossoms with a chemical called "7" which kills a certain percentage of them. The climate is good for fruit growing. Winters are cool, summers hot. January is the coldest month; June, just before the rains start, is the warmest. Rainy season is June and July. Temperature averages 60 degrees F., ranging from 10 to 100 above. Annual precipitation averages 10 inches. Sometimes there are flurries of snow in winter. As much as five feet falls some winters in the mountains around Colonias Juarez and Pacheco and a foot or more in the valleys and on the flats. It usually melts quickly. Frost danger period is from late February into May. In 1977 growers had to smudge (heat) their orchards for six weeks. But in 1 978 they did so only abou 1 1 0 hours. Smudging is done by open pot diesel burning, which is only half as expensive as closed pots. Any five gallon metal can will serve as a pot. These are placed on the ground at intervals among the trees and set afire when the temperature reaches 15 degrees above zero when the trees are budding, at 29 degrees when the fruit is set. Open pot smudging is a messy affair. The smoke floats low as a pall over the entire community until almost noon when the winds blow it away. It leaves an oily black film on everything it touches. Wires keep houses closed and cover carpets and furniture with fabric and plastic sheets. When the smudging season is over a general cleanup is necessary. While the usual light morning and evening winds are providential in more ways than to clear away smudge smoke, they sometimes increase in-crease in volume to such an extent as to blow trees down and roofs off. Occasional hailstones also endanger the orchards. Some growers spread small space fishing nets over the trees to protect the fruit. Because it is such a key factor in their lives, the weather is closely watched by the colonists. The State of Chihuahua maintains meteorological and geographic stations here and there. Dublan depends on the one in New Casas Grandes. The one in Colonia Juarez is situated in a corner of the high school grounds, attended by a teacher, John Whetten, who phones a report daily to the capitol and disseminates the information to the colonists. Information gathered by the instruments in the little box on stilts consists of the following: barometric pressure, maximum and minimum atmospheric temperatures, rainfall, wind direction and velocity, sky conditions, visibility, frost, relative humidity, to which Whetten adds season of the year and weather conditions such as storms, snow, hail, mists and the like. Labor for pruning, thinning, pollinating, irrigating and harvesting harvest-ing comes from surrounding communities of small Latin Mexican farmers and villagers who can spare time from their own operations. Hundreds of these are employed during the year. The wage in 1978 was 96 pesos (about U.S. $4.50) per day. Until recent years, tree seedling were imported from the U.S.A. Now an ever-increasing number are being supplied locally by the nurseries of Ashton Longhurst and John Memmott in Colonia Dublan. Apples are harvested in September and October. . rears in September peaches June through August and cherries July and August. These correspond closely to the schedule in the U.S. inter-mountain inter-mountain west. Mormon colony fruit is famous for quality in Mexico and the entire crop is readily sold for high prices in the major cities. When the writer lived in Guadalajara several years ago the only apples available avail-able in the big Abastos, Libertad and Coronoa wholesale markets and chain super markets were branded "Paquime" and "Taramuhara." "Las manazanas prodicidos por los Mormones de Chihuahua son mejores," the vendors would proudly intone. These two brands and "La Furia" from the Lopez trees are packed by Empacadora Paquiime, a cooperative packing company. Wagner Brothers orchards operate their own packing plant and market the "Wagner Brand" and others of independent growers. Both are situated in New Casas Grandes, about midway between the two colonies. Paquime, was established in 1974 by 72 LDS land-owners and Joaquin Lopez. By 1978 it had 84 members, 90 percent Mormon, about 80 percent of North American descent. The originators pooled 25 million pesos (U.S. $1,400,000). The plant, covering 12 acres, is considered to be the largest of its kind in Mexico. It consists of packing and cold storage rooms, fertilizer, insecticide and other supplies and equipment warehouses, offices, petroleum station, stores for auto and truck parts, construction construc-tion materials, ladders, farm machinery, irrigation pipe, engines, motors, pumps, seeds, seedlings and the like. Paquime "gets it wholesale" for its members and markets all their products: fruit, beans, sorghum, wheat, hay whatever. A total of 6,000 acres of orchards is represented: 43 percent apples, 43 peaches, 10 pears and the rest cherries, pecans, plums and nectarines. Average yearly pack is 300,000 boxes each of apples (50 lbs), peaches (24lbs) and 40,000 of pears(50 lbs). It was projected that the 1978 pack would be 800,000 boxes of peaches, 400,000 of apples and 40,000 of pears. Planting of peaches has increased dramatically in the Colonia Dublan region. Prices by U.S. standards were astronomical in 1977: apples and pears U.S. $16.00 per box, peaches $9.00. Paquime employes 18 fulltime staff and 140 packers at the height of the season. About 80 percent of the people in the area benefit in some way from the operation. The packing season starts 15 June for peaches, 1 August for pears and 1 September for apples. Fruit is transported by a fleet of one company-owned refrigerator trailer and eight others of a company called "Transports Paquime," owned by a consortium of members. Principal markets are Mexico City, Torreon, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. Fruit is distributed to individual buyers by various fruit brokers. Two trailer loads were exported to the U.S. in 1977 as an experiment. It was unsatisfactory and probably won't be repeated, so long as the market is healthy in Mexico, said manager Tony Jones. Paquime is comfortably profitable. Board of directors consists of Ernest Nielsen, Lawrence Memmott, Ashton Taylor, Kelly Romney, Marshall Turley, Merriner Jones, Waldo Call, John Robinson, Francisco Gonzalez, Jay Whetten and Douglas Romney. Nor is the Wagner Brothers operation puny. These five energetic Mormons are orchardists, packers, marketers and general farmers. They cultivate 500 acres of apples, peaches, soy beans and sorghum in the Casas Grandes valley. Their packing plant and trasport fleet of refrigerated trucks is valued at around U.S. $500,000. It employs 150 at peak season. The entire complex requires from 60 to 500 employes a year. The brothers Wagner started to grow fruit in 1960 and built the plant in 1964. In 1977 it packed 300,000 boxes; in 1978 the pack was projected at 600,000 of peaches and upwards, of 200,000 of apples. Much of this is bought from small orchardists. In 1978 it was estimated that their own orchards would account for 45,000 boxes apples and 600,000 of peaches. The Wagners market their fruit themselves, maintaining sales offices and warehouses in Mexico City, Monterrey, Torreon, and Chihuahua. Dennis Wagner manages the orchards, financing and part of the general farming. Wilbur oversees the packing and the rest of the farming. Kenyon is the book-keeper and business manager. Richard bosses the repair shops and is in charge of machinery. Vaughn is sales manager with office in Mexico City. In addition some growers pack small quantities of fruit independently, independ-ently, such as the Romney Brothers of Colonia Juarez. The original, basic, large-scale agricultural venture of the colonists was cattle-raising and many of them have continued in this traditional western way of life. Keith Bowman, of Colonia Dublan, owns a 10,000 acre cattle ranch in the Casas Grandes valley, pasturing 800 head of hereford beef stock. Others of this colony heavily into livestock are Fletcher, Larry and John Memmott, John Robinson, Gerald, Nita and Ronnie Taylor. Probably the largest number of critters in the hill country around Colonia Juarez bear the brands of the Whettens: Jay, Kelly Ray, et al, but this might be disputed by D.S. Brown and son-in-law Howard G. Schmidt. Also in the running as substantial "bullshippers" are the Romneys: Kelly, Wayne, Lanon, McKell and the Meredith Irvins. Most of the beef is sold in the United States. Hog raising looked good to the Romneys, Turleys, Hatches and Gonzalez families in 1968. They tied in with a big pork company in Mexico City and started a modern piggery with capacity for 500 sows and 50 boars. They sold the animals to a meat packing company in Chihuahua. But it was unprofitable and they gave up on it in 1972. The plant still stands unused on the hill above the colony, a marvel of modern convenience and automation. Turkey raising was also tried. Eventually the growers either quit or sold to a Latin Mexican entrepeneur in New Casas Grandes Orem-Geneva Times- -December21,1978 who has successfully developed one of the largest such onerations in Mexico. You Mormons are surely energetic," exclaimed the Latin Mexican taxi driver who took me from New Casas Grandes to Colnia Juarez "You work hard to improve your lives. The Mormon farms around here are the best in the state. All the Mormons are rich! But look at our places!" He pointed to the area we were passing and I looked, hard. The countryside is made up of communal farms (ejidos) which are broken up into "parcelas" (about six acres) of land per head of family. Many ejiditarios reside in villages and pasture livestock on their land. Others live in shabby adobe houses among even shabbier outbuildings on their parcels and gain a bare subsistence from a small garden, some fruit trees, poultry and use most of the six acres to pasture a few pigs, cows and horses. Fences are haphazard and weeds are thick and high. Then comes the Mormon colony and what a difference! The farms are neatly fenced, well cultivated and heavily cropped. Homesteads are shady with trees and landscaped with lawns flowers and shrubs. Homes are spacious, expertly made, attractively painted, comfortably furnished - some even luxurious. Yards and sheds contain con-tain well-kept cars, trucks, spray rigs and other mechanical equipment. Contrast is startling between the modern, adequately equipped Mormon school in attractive landscaped setting and the ramshackle state school on a barren, dusty lot. I walked to the heights above Colonia Juarez and compared the area of well watered, rich land from which the original settlers had been evicted in 1885 with the area in which they were forced to settle and marvelled at the difference. What was once a rocky, dry, inhospitable ravine is now an oasis of prosperity and beauty, while the original site is much the same as it has always been, potentially affluent but still undeveloped. These observations about Colonia Juarez appllies also in varying degrees to Colonia Dublan and what is left of Pacheco. i t s ii I'll 11 M i 1 Ml, mm ! 111 -3 V M ? 1 v Ml 5 "' ., JTrom Christmastide of " T .4 - yesteryear come many v , r' v of the happiest traditions i'' " 'a of the season. It is in this - good old-fashioned spirit that we greet you, and wish you all the best the holidays can bring. A very merry Christmas, everyone! We thank you, our customers, for your friendly patronage... serving you is our pleasure, and an enduring privilege. i GENETS STATE BANK V I All ape-omits insured to $40,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. |