Show orchard soils often become heavy and alkaline thousands of trees lost by hard watering from wells and other causes open system in arun prun ing meets with much favor this theme might hae been properly labeled the fool s progress but happily some people can learn things when a house falls on them I 1 had two orchards tall on me and hae come out of the debris with shattered nerves but with one eye open any bow and am seeing things solomon was a wise man writes george H west in the denver field and farm he had much domestic experience and knew ot the apple speaking ol 01 the apple tree among the trees of the wood he says I 1 sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste later be says comfort me with apples for I 1 am sick of lo 10 e long before one s orchard becomes a source of in come to the tired soul and body and empty pocket the grower may well reverse this saying and cry out comfort me with love tor I 1 am sick 0 apples the lord loves a good fighter and eternal vigilance brings many things besides liberty the apple grower fights from start to finish and well earns his profits who can say the halt Is et reached on the net profits from a mature apple orchard under the added wisdom of the years yet before ua 1 am not an experienced apple grower no doubt most of those men are doing their orchard and apple work better and at a less cost than I 1 have been doing and have secured better results such can pat them selves on the back to others I 1 may prove a horrible example but you need not fall into the same boles I 1 did you can dig plenty of your own probably it costs on the average 20 cents a box to grow apples and 40 cents mora for harvesting boxing and marketing say 60 cents a box total perhaps a box is a fair average price tor jonathans and Wine saps and tor the missouri pippin and 1 00 for ben dails carload lots net f 0 b our stations the margins show what to grow we have lost many trees by our own men leaving them in the original nursery bundles and heeling them in instead of opening and spreading them out also heeling them in pits with upright instead of sloping sides in both cases they get air and dry out much of our irrigated orchard lands have become heavy and somewhat al kalene and we have lost thousands of young trees by hard watering from wells that were strongly alkaline in re planting hereafter we plan to put a shovel or two of clear sand around every young trees roots every year we loae young trees from girdling by the rabbits we have tried blood on the tree trunks and abandoned it then axle grease was used it kept off the rabbits bul drew the heat dried up the sap and killed the trees we believe in cross fertilization alq our largest crop of apples came one year when we had one hundred hives of bees in the orchard ve now have two hundred hives on one orchard and the name number near the other one we use what may be called the open system in pruning taking out the cen acers if the young trees and where old er orchards are acquired we are doing he same thing BO far as insuring symmetry ym metry and balance to the tree will permit under this system the trees bend every way from the center easily their fruit e use no props and rarely are picked from the fl alff and rarely find a limb broken most of our apples are picked from the ground this plan of growing apple trees we find in every way best for pollination clr drainage pruning spraying and harvesting the low spreading trees catch little wind and we have few windfalls wind falls rubbing off the green water sprouts or suckers in july by hand greatly lessens the costs of pruning ater also cutting the ground suckers right back to the root or tree trunk presents them from growing again |