Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-08-26
The wor.h Of an Apple Orehara


The abundance of apples last year and their
consequent low price had a somewhat discour-
aging effect upon the culture of this fruit
More than trees enough to produce apples for
family use were considered by some farmers
as cumberers of the ground, and not a few
were removed by the axe. As might have
been anticipated the yield of apples this sea-
son is generally light. An apple year for the
whole country like that of last season is alto
gether exceptional. 1t may not be equaled
again for a quarter of century There was
IN immense crop in nearly all the states where
this fruit is most cultivated. In the best
bearing seasons there is usually q failure in
some localities or in larger parts of the coun-
try, but last year a district where the apple
trees were not loaded with fruit was a rare
exception. Taking the average yield with
theaverage price of fruit for a series of years,
it is doubtful if we have many resources of
the farm that pay better, with the same ex-
pense in labor, than a good apple orchard
All the fruit required by the owner of the or
chard and his family is worth as much to
him as if he bought it at its market value +:
and the sales of the surplus above the needs
of the family furnish no small part of the in
come of many farms.
The owner OF an orchard of 800 apple trees
claims that it pays him the interest of 81, 900
Albert Chapman of Middlebury, tells of a Ia
dy whose husband, years ago, set a hundred
trees followed by the usual luck-a dwindling
loss of the entire lot which so discouraged
him that he gave up fruit growing in disgust
as Improbable, but the wife, with more per
severance, determined to have an orchard.
and with her own hands sowed the seeds,
tended the young plants grated them her
self, and set out some three or four hundred
trees on the most unpromising part of the
farm for other crops, but on what proved a
good spot to raise apples-a limestone ledgy
piece, where the trees had to be set irregular
ly TO ind soil enough for them TO grow. This
lady so far realized her expectations as to en-
Joy larger return from this little lot than
was derived from any other one product of a
large and productive farm, of which this was
small and once unprOduetive part
There are now several ways of utilizing the
apple crop that are destined 10 come into
more extensive use. One of these is drying
new evaporating process is SO much nicer and
cleaner than the old fashioned dried apple,
that an increased demand for dried fruit in
this shape win be created, and good prices
viii be paid for it. Common dried apple is
now extremely low, yet the evaporated apple
retails at fifteen cents per pound. The man
ufacture of apple jelly is new industry that
has perhaps been carried on more extensively
in Windham county than in any other part OF
the country. The demand for this product
will, also probably increase as more of it il
put upon the market The old method OF
disposing of inferior apples by making them
into cider, for the cider itself or for convert.
ing it into vinegar, of late wears has hardly
paid for gathering. The manufacture of cider
for distillation into something that does
little good and may do much harm is of course
not 70 be encouraged. Sour cider is bad
enough for the sake of the small percentage