Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-10-24

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, additional care of pruning and cleaning
they are but cumberers of the ground
| and both for appearance and use the sol
had better be converted to some othe
purpose. For what is more insight,
than neglected orchard and as to pro
fit, one might as well keep flock 0
scabby sheep, which can never come il
contact with bush, or briar, or splinteret
rail without leaving wool by the ounce
behind them. A lean OK with broker
limb, fit neither for work, nor slaughter
is another emblem of neglected fruit
trees.
The cultivation of fruit for the market
is minor object in parts remote from
large towns. But in districts where
good fruit would command a ready
market and good price, there prevails
an unaccountable inattention and indif-
ference. On some farms, in condition
otherwise respectable, and with orchards
of from one to two hundred trees, all
that is obtained is about twenty barres
of cyder, few barrels of eating apples,
a bushel or two of pears, and small
quantity of the stone fruits. Again, Oh
a few other farms with orchards oil the
same number of trees of equal age, thu
harvest yields ten times as much. Not
that in the latter case the years wages
paid ont amount to larger sum, or that
more hands are employed. But what
hands there are, are better directed.
The care Of trees is considered by the
Proprietor an IMPORTANT branch QfhaS-
6andry, and as such is attended to as
systematically as any other branch. In
truth the whole difference in the result
| of the year proceeds from this, that the
farmer in the one case inShccts his or
chards carefully in thf Stirring and Puts
them in order, while the farmer in the
other throws away the same time in idle
conversation or listless inaction, waiting
for the frost to be gone and reserving all
his strength for the plough.
The length of time required to bring
fruit ire es into bearing state--the acct
dents to which they are liable--the IN
certainty of the haryest--and the small
ness Of profit at the bea.,---these are
thought, by many, sufficient objections
to the cultivation of orchards, at least
with any great degree of care.
The first objection may be answered by
a direct appeal TO the farmers sense Of
, interest. What, sir, will it cost you to
purchase and to set out your hundred
young trees and to take proper care Of
them the first year? Will not your farm
be worth the second, third, or fourth year
and so on, as much more to selb or to
to keep for yourself, your children, as
it will have cost you, in the mean time,
to take good care ofyour young orchard ?
And when il shall have come into full
bearing, at twelve or fourteen years, will
you not be Unidentified by the increased
value Of your farm, which productive
orchard will give to it Will not your
profit be fifty fold in proportion to your
expense
But, you say, your trees are liable to
premature decay and to accidents A
thriving nursery, which costs little, will
supply losses which care could not pre-
vent.
Then comes the uncertainty of the
harvcst.-But what harvests are not I'M
certain You toll and waste your
strength in the cornficld; and yet your
harvest is uncertain. A bad fruit year
comes, and few days labor in pruning
and cleansing your trees is all you can
have lost.-Even this is not lost, for the
quantity of fruit, even in bad year, will
more than pay you. Besides, common
ly, the succeeding year is very abundant
in fruit.
But there is the fourth Objectionable
smallness of profit. The word profit is
relative term. He, who gains ten
cents on one dollar, makes greater pro-
fit than he who gains five per cent. on
one hundred dollars. Calculate what it
has cost you to raise your orchard, and
to make your cyder-to gather and bar
rel your fruit for the market, and if your
cyder will bring but nine shillings the
barrel and your fruit but two dollars, the
absolute gain may be twenty per cent.
taking the rent of the land employed in
to the account, although the whole
amount received may not be tenth part
of the income of the farm. The proba-
bility is, however, that from large stock
of trees of various kinds of fruit, the pro-
fit may amount to a considerable sum,
and thus from very small original cost,
the sales of fruit, may come to be the
principal income of a farm, in other re-
spects in good condition.
In any part of the Commonwealth a