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Show The Care of the Orchard ed'bau. I Diiecloi Ulh ;.. jf : Experiment Ortjon Short Lint Htmonjtration Train Ltetur Sialics (Continued from last week) PrunlnK is just a essential ni aprayini? and unother two or three cents a buahel pent on the care of the tree will yield bis rcturtiB. One of the chief reaaona why we are able to ralHe high priced apples la becauxe of our long days of summer aunshlne, and yet if we allow the wood growth of our trees to become ho thick as to shade a crop of applco, we might as well plant our trees In Ohio and be done with it. The open headed tree with plenty of sunlight, plenty of air circulation carrying a small enough crop of apples no that the tree can produce them to the standard size, la tho efficient tree. There are almost as many methods of pruning as there are men to prune, and yet they all Vractlcally agree in regard to the object ob-ject sought. The major portion of the experienced western orchardista, lowever, agree that after the tree has been grown and tho head properly formed and spread out, aa has been described to you by Secretary Mcpherson, Mc-pherson, one ahould be careful with the pruning knife in the winter time until the tree is in full bearing. And. above all other thUt,, after the fourth or fifth year, the tops of the branches should not be cut back unless un-less there is to be a heavy crop of apples ap-ples the next cuscn, and even in that cane, it is far better to leave them until the crop of apples is net and asHured and then reduce their length by summer pruning work. There are. thousands of orchards in thla intertnountaln region in which an original bpacjya bey) headed buck, only t5 start tliVee more long watef growths which have nuain been head-' ed""back, cah one Starting two or three more, and so on, until the toy of the tree is a miniature broom, and a witch's broom' at that. A tree In that shape can only be cured by long and tedious effort. One-thlrd of this energy, however, expended In starting tho tree right will prevent all thla. The rule, then, on the young developing develop-ing tree Is never to cut off a branch towards the top unless you cut off tho entire branch, until that tree Is fruiting heavily, then the excessive wood growth may bo reduced a small amount at a time by summer pruning Without disturbing the balance between be-tween the roots and top. In all pruning prun-ing of course It muat be remembered that the fruit Is bom on the short spurs next to the branches and that the lower down the fruit is borne on the tree the cheaper and easier it can be handled at picking time. It costs five tines as much to pick a bushel of appies ten feet from the ground as It does to pick a bushel within reach, and when you get much above ten feet, there la little profit In raising apples. Irrigation Is another of the western problems. In this day we hear a good deal about raising orchards without Irrigation or with a very small number num-ber of Irrigations. It is probably true that many orchards have been over-Irrigated over-Irrigated In the pant, but there will be still greater disappointment In the future If we go to the extreme and think we are going ;o raise fruit witn-out witn-out Irrigation water. It Is easy enough to raise trees, and many orchard or-chard have been raised up to the bearing time with very small use of water, but when a crop of fruit lias to be ripened right at the very dryest time of the year when wood growth has practically ceased and otherwise the tree would be using very little moisture, It will be round that an orchard or-chard requires as much water aa any other crop, and If the water l short at that time a few days may ruin the entire efforts of tho year. There Is also another factor to be kept In mind in the use of the Irrigation water, and that Is that the fruit buds for the next reason's crop must be developed during the last part of July and August of the preceding year, Just at the time that the greatest drain la made on the tree by the grow Ing crop. In our Irrigation experiments experi-ments on peaches, we have been able by withholding water at this time to absolutely stop the development of fruit buda. There is also another factor to be considered In Irrigating the orchard. Enthusiastic orchardtsts will take one out, point to a young orchard and say, "Ixok at that. It has never had a drop of water," and I have looked many times and have seen trees fine and hea!thy In appearance, but only hall or even one-third the size they would have Ix-en had they been Irrigated, and capable of carrying only a very mall load of fruit, even if they baj plenty of molHture to mature it, so that even If the orchard should be Ir rlgated from that time on It would be three or four years behind an irrigat ed orchard In Its producing jKiwer. On the other hand, in our pearh ex perimpnts. we have found that the rows that had the greatest amount ol water had mado the largest wood growth. Then when It .same time to mature tho fruit the immense amount of foliage took up so much of the water-that it was Impossible to develop de-velop the fruit to the proper slzo The happy medium, therefore, Is a sufficient amount f water to develoj a normal slzo tree not an excess that develops water sproutg and sappy wood, a rather light application ol water In the earlier part of the season so as not to stimulate ton much wood growth, but an abundance at the time when tho fruit la ripening and tlx fruit bud are developing. I saw mi orchard thla year In which everything that I have described to you so far had been done and apparently appar-ently well done the orchard was bearing from nine to twelve hundred bushels of apples per acre and yet the crop was practically worthless There Is, therefore, one more factor to be considered, and that Is thinning. thin-ning. This orchard waa a Oauo, Jon athan, lien Davis orchard of about fifteen fif-teen years old, and each tree had three to five thousand little bits of 'under-sized, shrunken apples. The j apples were of little valuo and the trees were breaking down and being ruined. If half or two thirds of those apples had been thinned out in the beginning of the season, tho remain-jder remain-jder would have produced a crop ai heavy as the trees could bear of bet-ter bet-ter developed and standard size apples, j There would have been enough vitality In the tree to develop fruit buds for 'ynoiher vear a,nd everybody would :have""bT?n tappy. A? ii the or-khardist or-khardist got an immense crop of tin-'salable tin-'salable fruit nnd next year his or tliarT" ill "not bear at all, since it Is lmp"ossiblo foTV tree to 1 JruU ibuda under sucfi an" elfcessivo load. Two or Three cents expended In thinning thin-ning would have made 00 cents difference differ-ence in tho worth ot these apples in, the fall. And, by the way, while I think of it, let me suggest to you that you bo-Igin bo-Igin thltnlng as soon as young trees j first begin to bear. The first year or so I that a young orchard begins bearing ;tha crop Is not worth the expense of spraying and handling, the trees need all of their energy to develop a framework frame-work for carrying the loads of the future fu-ture years and in every way It is better bet-ter to pull off the few wpph'S that appear ap-pear here and there; nd ,'et to the man that la developing the young orchard or-chard it is too much like pulling a tooth to pull off one of these apples. For this reason it Is good discipline. If you begin at that time and learn to pull apples off in order to make gre-Aer profits In the future, It will not be hard to keep it up and properly proper-ly thin your fruit when the orchard reaches the bearing ase. And even after all this is done, the problem of fruit g-owing has not yet been solved. VIn a fine crop of standard sized, sound fruit on his trees, the orchardist faces the problem prob-lem of picking, packing and marketing, market-ing, and right here there have been more failures In the past than In any other part of the work, except possibly pos-sibly spraying. I know two neighbors with orchards side by side where one of them received 2' cents per busnel for his apples more than they cost, while the other man received fiO, and right at this point, let me tell you, comeC tho parting of the ways. It Is one business to handle ground, to cultivate, cul-tivate, to Irrigate, to prune and to spray, and it Is another business to grade and market fruit, and in my travels through the fruit sections of the western part of America, I have 1 become more and more satistled that those valleys r. hich have been most uniformly successful in the marketing 1 of their fruit ate the ones that have placed this part of the work in the hands of the business man, regardless of his knowledge of orchards and soils. One of the best fruit handlers that I ' have ever come in contact with is as helpless as a baby when you gel hlrn ' away from his warehouse and Into 1 the orchard, and on the other nand, some of the worst failures In the marketing mar-keting end have been made by pre-' pre-' viously successful fruit growers. The western orchardist has a won-! won-! derful opKrtunlty; the choicest soils, the never-ending sunshine and an 1 abundance of irrigation water are his. Nature has been lavish In her bounties. boun-ties. Everything that goes to make ' success Is before blm. What he must I furnish Is intelligent supervision, en ergetlc prosecutions and a love of his ' calling, tempered by conservative 1 business sense. These are the essentials essen-tials of success In any line, but in n line of human endeavor will they , give greater return in liberty, prosperity pros-perity and security than in western orchard management. Itorrowed trouble cannot be paid back. |