Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-04-17
Farmers and Fruit Growing.

A writer in one of our exchanges expresses
the opinion that farmers ought not to under
take to manage an orchard and raise fruit.
He thinks that fruitgrowing should be
made speciality, and not part OF general
or mixed farming Farmers apples, he
says, even when farmer raises any, are
generally poor, understandable trash, be-
cause the farmer will not give his orchard
the necessary care and attention to raise
good fruit.
This is doubtless undergraduates view
of the subject but there is too much foun-
daton for much that he says about the lit
tie care bestowed by the average farmer
upon his fruit. There is no doubt that if
a farmer would give as much, or half as
much, or quarter as much, care and atten-
ton to fifty-dollar orchard-say hundred
and fifty trees-as he would willingly give
to a fifty dollar colt, the orchard would
prove far the most profitable venture of
the two.
In the course of large experience in the
business of growing fruit and frut-trees,
we have been astonished, until we lost the
power of being astonshed in that direction,
to see how utterly negligent of the most or
binary care and precaution a man will be
with young orchard The neglect begins
from the moment the trees are received from
the nursery. Setting out will often be delayed
for days-the trees, either packed or I'M
,,o,I,oJ 1noinrr IN, vitality at least
ten per cent. day. When settingis begun,
every rule of proper managementis omitted.
The holes are not properly dug neither the
root nor the branches receive the necessary
trimming, although the nurseryman may
have given the most careful verbal or printed
directions; the soil is shovelled roughly and
hastily into the holes, instead of being care
fully and firmly placed around every root !;
no water is used when the ground is dry,
and no mulch put around the trees to keep
them from drying out in any succeeding dry
time. The trees are often set out in grass
ground, and the weeds and grass so rob the
soil that even if the tree lives it makes no
growth, but becomes black, stunted, and so
worthless that when the cattle break or
browse it down, they destroy no value, for
the value is already gone out of it.
Even in the most favorable fruit regions
success with an orchard requires that it
should be properly set out, cared for and
titled at least until the trees come to bear
ing. The land should be MANFRED so as to
keep up growth of at least one foot in the
length of the branches every season. Moth
ing but low hoed crops ought to be grown
in young orchard a crop Of small grain,
so often "stolen" from an orchard, steals
twice the profit on the grain from the pro
gress of the trees.
Every tree ought to be looked over once a
week, to observe if insects are attacking it,,
and when they are seen they should be de
stroyed at once. In the fall the trunks of
the trees ought to be protected from the at
tacks of mice and rabbits by tying laths,
barrel-staves, or tarred paper around them.
The early spring, pleasant days in March,
should be taken for seeing what branches are
likely to cross or interfere, removing them
before they get large. I" But could never
take so much pains as that" says a reader.
Then, we say, don't try to have an orchard,
or set more than the few trees you can at
tend to, say near the house, or in the garden.
But the fact is, there is not 1.-THE of the
work in attending an orchard of a hundred
trees that there is in rearing a colt, breaking
him and fitting him for use or market. And
hundred trees, brought into full bearing,
will yield an annual income greater than the
price of two average horses. Now that we
have so many excellent kinds of apples that
have proved entirely hardy in the coolest
sections of Vermont, any farmer may have
an orchard if he really wants one enough
to give, say weeks work, annually, to a
hundred trees.