Show THE CARE OF THE ORCHARD by E ea D BALL director utah experiment station oregon short line demonstration train lecture continued from last week pruning Is just as essential as spraying and another two or three cents a bushel spent on the care ol of the tree will yield me big returns ono one ot of the chief reasons why we are able to raise high priced apples Is because of our long days of summer sunshine and yet if 1 we allow the wood growth 0 of our trees to become so thick as to shade a crop of apples wo we might as well w ell plant our trees in ohio and be done with it the open headed tree with plenty ot of sunlight plenty of air circulation carrying a small enough crop of apples so that the tree can produce them to the standard size bize la Is the efficient tree there are almost as many methods of pruning as there are men to prune and yet they all practically agree in regard to the object sought the major portion ot of th the experienced western however agree that after the tree has been grown and the head proper properly lyl formed and spread out as has been described to you by secretary mcpherson mci I 1 one should be careful with the pruning knife in the winter time until the tree Is in full bearing and I 1 above all other 95 matter altar the fourth or fifth year the tops of the branches shoud not be cut back unless there Is to be a heavy ci crop op of apples the next season and even in that case it Is tar far better to leave them until the crop of apples is set and assured and then reduce their length by summer pruning work there are thousands of orchards in this intermountain region in which an original branch has been headed back only to start three more long water growths which have again been headed back each one starting two or three more and so BO on until until the top of the tree Is a broom and a witcha broom at that A tree in that shape can only be cured by long and tedious effort one third of this energy however eapen expended in starting the tree right will pre prevent all this the rule then on the young tree is never to cut off a branch towards the top unless you cut off the entire branch until that tree is 13 fruiting heavily then the excessive wood growth may be reduced a small amount at a time by summer pruning without di disturbing ng the balance between the roots and top in all pruning of course it must be remembered that the he fruit is borne on the short spurs next to the branches and that the lower down the fruit Is borne on the tree the char and easier it can be handled at picking time it costs five times as picka bushel ot of apples ten feet from the ground as it dousto does to pick a bushel within reach and when you get much above ten feet thero Is little profit in raising apples aples irrigation Is another ot of the western problems in this day we hr bear a good deal about raising or orchards shards without irrigation or witha vary very 1 small number of irrigations it if Is probably truel true that many orchards have leave been over irrigated in the past but there will be still greater disappointment ju jn the future it if we go to the ithe extreme and think we are going to raise fruit wita out irrigation water it Js Is easy enough to raise trees and many orchards have been raised up to the bearing time with very small use of water but when a crop of fruit has to be ripened right bight at chevery th the every drnest tim time of the year when wood gro growth w th has pi practically ce ceased sed and otherwise the tree would be using very ver y letle mo moisture liture it will be bound that an or chard requires as much lucli water as a any nj other crop and it the water is short bif a that ume tiffie a few days may yuin the entire efforts of the year there Is also another factor to be kept in mind in the use of the irrigation water and that is th thy the fruit buds for the next seasons crop must be developed during the last part of july and august of the p receding preceding year just at the time that the greatest drain is ie made on the tree by the growing crop in our irrigation experiments on peaches we have been able by withholding water at this time to absolutely stop the development of fruit buds another factor to be considered in irrigating the orchard enthusiastic will take one aut out point toa to a young orchard and say look at that it has hasneuer never had a drop of water and I 1 have looked many times and have seen trees fine and healthy in appearance but only halt half or even one third the size they would have been had they been irrigated and capable of carrying only a very small email load ot of fruit ault even evin if they had plenty of moisture to mature it so that even it the orchard should be irrigated 1111 ted from that time on it would be three or four years behind an irrigated orchard in its producing power on the other hand in our peach experiments peri ments we have found that the its rows rows that had the greatest amount of water had made the largest wood growth then when it came time to mature the fruit the immense amount of foliage took up so BO much of the water that it was impossible to develop the fruit to the proper size the happy medium therefore is a sufficient amount of water to develop a normal size tree not an excess that cevelo develops Ps water sprouts aniL sappy a rather light application ol of water in the earlier part of the season BO 90 as a notto not to stimulate too much wood growth but an abundance at the time lime when the fruit Is ripening and the fautt buds are developing I 1 saw an orchard this year in which everything that I 1 have described to you so far had been done and alpar antly well done the orchard was bearing from nine to twelve hundred bushels of 0 apples per acre and yet the crop was practically we worthless ruthless there Is IB therefore one more factor to bo be considered and that Is thin ning this orchard was a gano jon ion athan den ben davis orchard of about afif teen years old and each tree had three to live five thousand little bits ot of undersized under sized shrunken apples the apples were ot of little value and the trees were breaking down and being ruined it if halt half or two thirds ot of those apples had been thinned out in the beginning of the season the remainder would have produced a crop as heavy as the trees could bear of better te r developed and standard size apples there would have been enough vitality in the tree to develop fruit buds tor for another year and everybody would have been happy As it Is 19 the ch got an immense crop of un zal lable fruit and next year his orchard will not bear at all since it is impossible tor for a tree to teed feed fruit buds under such an excessive load two or three cents expended inthia in thinning would have made 50 cents difference in the worth of these apples in the fall and by the way while I 1 think of it let me suggest to you that you te be gin thinning as soon as young trees first begin to bear the first year or so BO that a young orchard begins bearing the crop is not worth the expense of 0 spraying and handling the trees need all ot of their energy to develop a framework for carrying the loads ot of the future u deais and in every way it is better to pull off the few apples that appear here and there and yet at to the man that Is developing the young orchard it is too much like pulling a tooth to pull oft off one of 0 these apples for this reason it is good discipline if you begin at that time and learn to pull apples oft off in order to make greater profits in the future it will not be hard to keep it up and properly thin your fruit when the orchard reaches the bearing age and even after all this is done the problem of 0 fruit growing has not yet yei been solved with a fine crop of bf standard sized sound fruit on his trees the faces the lem ism of picking packing and market ing in and right here there have been more failures in the par past it than in any other part of the work except possibly spraying I 1 know two neighbors with orchards side by side where conr ct cf them received 2 cents per bushel tor for his bis apples app cs more than they cost while the other man received 60 and right at this point let me tell you comes the parting ot of the ways it Is one business to handle ground to cultivate to irrigate to prune and to spray and it Is another business to grade and market fruit and ju in my travels through the trull fruit sections of the western part of america I 1 have become more ard and more satisfied that those valleys which have been most uniformly successful in the marketing of their fruit are the ones that have placed this part of the work in the begir handsol hands of the business man regardless idless of 0 his knowledge of orchards orchard s andl and soils one of the best beat fruit handlers that I 1 have eyer ever come in contact with is as helpless as a baby when you get him away from his warehouse and into the orchard and on the other nand some of the worst failures in the marketing end have been made by previously successful fruit growers the we western has a wonderful opportunity the choicest soils tho the never ending sunshine and a an abundance ol of irrigation water are his nature lias has been lavish in her bounties ties everything that goes to make success is before him what he must furnish is intelligent supervision energetic prosecutions and a love of 0 his calling tempered by conservative business sense these are the essen bials of success in any line but in no line of human endeavor will they give greater return in liberty prosperity and security than in western orchard management |