Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-10-21
Agricultural.


FrOhtabie Land.
NET INCOME OF $50 PER ACRE FROM LAND
THAI HAS DEEM CROPPED THIRTY YEARS. WITH
OUT MANURE OR ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZERS.
1t is considered evidence of the superior
fertility of western soil when we are told of
lands that have been in cultivation there for
twenty years, and still produce good crops
without manure or other fertilizers. We
have intervales that overflow that have yield
ed heavy crops of coarse grass for more than
half a century; but it will hardly be believed
that We have hill land in Windham county,
which, after being cropped for over thirty
years in succession, including the present
year, without manure or fertilizers of any
kind, produced this season a crop worth at
least $50, perhaps $40, net per acre yet
we can tell our readers where such land can
be found in one of the towns Of this county.
We do not mean a grass crop of that value;
the crop to which we refer was exclusive of
the grass grown on the same land.
Look on the county atlas for the town of
Newfane; about a mile west of Newfane
Hill-a place famous in local history, the
former county seat-you will notice a point
marked on the map: "This place was settled
by Moses Kenney, June, 1875" Henry S.
Kenney, a descendant of Moses Kenney, oc-
cupied this farm up to 1867, when he remov-
ed to his present residence at the fair ground
farm near Fayetteville. While living on the
old homestead, about thirty years ago, he
planted a small orchard of two or three acres
on land that had been recently cleared after
cutting away and removing the wood. The
trees we're taken from a nursery grown from
seed planted by himself. They were grated
mostly to Baldwins and Greetings The or
chard lot coptains about three acres, but the
trees do not cover the whole of it--about two
acres is occupied by the orchard. These two
acres have this year yielded product worth,
at a moderate estimate, $3.50. Beside the
windfalls, Mr.. Kenney has picked this fall
from these trees 1903 barrels of apples-about
20 barrels of Baldwins, the remainder being
mostly Greetings. 1t will be noticed that in
this estimate we do not reckon the apples at
their full market value, winter fruit being
quoted in the cities at $500 per barrel.
1t is noteworthy that such yield of choice
varieties of apples, which are supposed to re-
quire a rich soil and careful cultivation,
should be produced on land that has always
been cropped with grass, and that has never
received any application of manure or an
tifcial fertilizer Yet there is nothing very
peculiar about the land itself to distinguish it
from other land similarly situated. Though
it has naturally strong, fertile SOIL and ia
vorable location, incliniug to the southeast
and protected by woods on the north aud
west, there are probably hundreds of acres in
the county in like favorable situations that
would produce as much if they had been put
to the same use, after clearing away the for
est, with the same care and skill in the man.
agement of the trees. We should certainly
be disappointed, however, if we should trans
plant fruit trees on old land and allow them
to remain in grass ground without fertiliza-
ton, expecting any such result as Mr.. Ken
ney has secured. The productiveness of his
orchard is in part accounted for by the impe-
tus that the young trees gained from the soil
of land newly cleared from the forest.
1t might be supposed that the fruit from
an orchard on land from which an annual
crop of grass had been taken for more than
thirty years, and nothing returned, would be
of inferior quality. The reverse is the fact.
The apples, though not large, are remarka-
bly, sound, smooth, and free from blemish.
That it is possible to grow such fruit in ia
vorable locations with so little labor and ex-
pense, after the trees are well started, ought
to encourage every one who contemplates set
ting out an orchard.