The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1877-08-10
APPLE CULTURE.
BY A MEMBER OF TIE GRANGE.


having never enjoyed the advantages of a
common English education.
The apple is entitled to the name of
the queen of fruits, because you can
have it fresh twelve months of the year,
without the extra care of canning that
you would have with other fruits. The
specimens before you were simply gath
cred in dry weather and laid on shelves,
or kept in boxes containing not more
than bushel. They were picked from
the trees about the goth of October.
An orchard requires attention, bnt no
extra culture. Give the trees sufficient
distance to allow of the culture of other
crops between them. Mine are twenty
feet each way, but experience now tells
me that thirty feet would be better
Around the body OF the tree keep circle
of couple of feet clean of weeds and
grass with the hoe. This is necessary, so
that the insects will have no hiding place.
1t is the numerous tribes of insects that
cause the saddest havoc in our orchards.
A little vigilance and care is the best
preventive. If the trees are properly
pruned at the first planting, they will
need scarcely any pruning for years after
wards.
If you have old trees that you wish
to rejuvenate, severe pruning in au-
tumR will cause it to put out an album
dance of young growth in the spring.
If you have the common apple, and you
wish to improve it with finer varieties,
do it by top grating in the month OF
March to the first week in April. Speci-
mems of gratis and graftings are before
you-examine them you will see at a
glance how it is done, quicker than il
you should read about it an hour. But
don neglect to read books and paper:
that treat upon the subject. If you
once acquire taste and desire for fruit
culture, you will then seek and find
plenty of information that will lead you
onward, for "when you knock it shall be
open unto you" If you wish TO raise
new Seeding varieties, for the best
method of procedure / refer you to the
very able and elaborate address delivered
before the Georgia State Horticultural
society by very able horticulturist
Mr.. Berckmans. Proceedings of the
Society have been distributed.) If evel
you let an orchard take care of itself 8
few years, it will not then be worth any
care. The pleasure to be reaped from an
orchard will amply repay all labor.
The "good book" tells us " it is more
blessed to give than to receive" 1t is q
real pleasure to have apples to give to
your friends when they drop in to spend
social hour. Apples are a great help
in the family, especially in winter when
vegetables arc scarce; there are 80 many
ways in which they can be prepared for
the table-they are nice fried for break
fast, apple sauce and pies for dinner.
baked apples and cream for tea. OF all
the jellies that ar: made from the va
rious fruits, none can surpass good apple
jelly.
Some of your temperance societies are
not so strict but that they allow of a
social glass of apple cider. An album
dance OF fruit in winter, as well as sum-
mer, exerts a great beneficial effect on
the health of family. Every farmer
ought to have good apple orchard for
this consideration alone.
The study of the habits of the differ
ent varieties of apples affords pleasure.
1t is interesting to note the time
when the various varieties bloom. The
Lyberion crab, fine preserving apple
is always first to bloom. 1t was,in full
blossom this year about the 9th of March.
The Walkers Red, Fall Pippin and the
Cheese, all September apples, were in
bloom the 14th of March, the Red As
trachan, about throe days later. The
Red June blooms two weeks later. The
LIST of April found the majority of them
IN bloom, except FIVE varieties which had
not at this time budded out-the Hoover
Rawls Jannet, Faust Buncomb and La.
nier. The last named is a seeding orig.
mated in Edgefeld, South Carolina
from seeds planted by Miss Lanier. 1t is
a large, fine apple, keeps till Christmas
1t took the premium at two of the Au.
gusta fairs, held in 1870 and 1871. The
tree is the very last to put out leaves and
blooms-about four to five weeks later
than the early bloomers, therefore less
liable to be killed by late spring frosts.
The culture OF the apple can be made
profitable even in this latitude. 1t is a
well known fact, that the demand for
fruits always increases "a the supply Is
furnished. l can remember when twenty
years ago, the Augusta market for straw
berries was supplied by one Mrs. Walker
from less than one-eighth OF an acre.
We have now in Richmond county about
ninety acres of strawberries, and prices
are remunerative. If we had five humid
red acres planted we would club together,
charter refrigerator cars, send our ber-
ries to northern markets, and get better
prices than We now do. Six years ago 1
found it quite difficult to sell in the
Augusta market ten pounds of grapes
daily. Last summer 1 sold with ease
seventy to hundred pounds per day.
The public have acquired a taste for
them now, and they will buy grapes
whenever offered at reasonable prices.
1t will be so with the apple and other
fruits. Judge Noah Smith, of Jefferson
county, two years ago, realized from one
wagon load of apples seventy-five dollars.
/ know a man in this county who rented
a hundred acre farm; it had a five
acre apple orchard on it; from the
proceeds of that orchard he paid the
whole of his rents and had several barrels
of cider left over to turn into good
vinegar.
The United States census reports for
1870 puts the number of farms in Geor-
gia at 1886. The commissioner of agri-
culture for the state, gives the number of
trees as returned by the tax receivers, at
2,072, 266; putting los trees to the
acre (this number it requires at 20 feet
each way would give to each farm 81
acres of apple orchard. This is very
small acreage when considered that aside