Mexico weekly ledger., 1892-12-29

VI "eA2 "
had but little time and less inclination
10 care for an orchard and so gave the
but.little thought until the mat
ter was urged upon him by sone en-
nonresident nursery agent
who had but little opportunity to
know the varieties OF fruit best suited
to the locality, and when he did buy
a bill of trees and plant them they
were often neglected and failure was
the natural consequence.
At the present time conditions are
As the price of land ad-
and large tracts are divided
into smaller farms il becomes neees-
sary TO use every acre To best advan-
tage and L will say in the face Of all
past failures that any given acreage
OF good farm land WI under the
proper management yield more than
double net profit from fruit than
from grain, grass and live stock. This
fact will be apparent to any II who
has an opportunity TO make the COM
parison. am confident that III the
near future we shall see the fruit IN
terests of Central Missouri on an equal
footing with other industries and in
some localities far surpass them.
1 do not think there is a farm in
Central Missouri that has no good
fruit land enough 20 grow n good
profitable market orchard. In select
ing a location for an orchard L would
choose moderately rolling land. II
fiat land must be used give good sur
face drainage by leaving open dead
burrows between the tree rows, pl'w-
ing the soil to the rows only enough
to prevent water from lying on the
ground. Plant only varieties OF fruit
that have proven to be profitable here
or that are recommended by persons
VIII have experience in fruit grow
ing. I think there is more loss from
planting Unsuitable varieties than
from any other cause / find it neces-
sary to cultivate orchards both ways
keeping the ground clear of weeds
and grass. Any cultivated crop may
be grown In an orchard while trees are
young If the fertility of the soil is kept
up, but never pillow deep near the trees
nor after the trees have gotten well
into bearing.
Prune little and often, removing
sprouts and small branches where
they interfere with each other and
wherever they are evidently out OF
! place. If this is done from the start
there will be no need of heavy prun-
ing.
Old orchards that are In bad shape
| may be revived and made quite fruit
| full by pruning off dead and surplus
branches, cultivating and fertilizIng
| the land. Young trees in an old orch
ard are not q success unless extra
care is taken. 1t is always better to
| plant on land never occupied by fruit
trees before.
In growing All orchard, handling
and marketing the fruit, there are
| many minor points that cannot be well
mentioned In a single article. The
| beginner who is an earnest will meet
and master the difficulties as they
| present thems elves if he avails him.
| self of the various opportunities tC
| study each point and learns by exper-
fence and observation, keeping him.
self well supplied with the current
| horticultural literature which he will
find to be much more of a real practicaI
! nature than the fine spun theories
and scientific nonsense of former times
when one class of people did the work
and the other class did the writing
and talking.
AS to markets for fruit, Think there
need be no fears. That great extent
| of country known az the northwest,
where home grown fruit is almost un-
known, and the rapidly growing
cities of our own state, will need al
| the good fruit we can produce and at
a paying price, too. A strictly choice
product makes its W market to a
great extent, especially is this the
Ease with fruit. The orchardist who
bears this in mind and works accord
ingly Will be sure of success.
! FRIDAY AFTERNOON.
! Mrs. Helen Laughlin follow
ed with a paper on "That
Small Dairy" She took the wo-
mans side of the domestic life on
the farm and went into some of the
details of how to care for the COWS
and calves, milk and butter. She
impressed on her hearers the neces-
sity of feeding stock very regularly.
Mr.. A. J. Blake read a paper on f;
"Shall the farmer stand still?''
Among other things he said:
MANY of you will remember the
day when calomel was a panacea es-
sential to every well-illed medicine
chest of our family doctors. Some
of us too remember when scarlet
fever was treated by giving potions
of hot teas aud our good family
physician gave US his best efforts
in hurrying the unfortunate child to
an early grave. Time has brought
blythe aid of Investigations a change
-calomel is now relegated to the
rear and is used in a limited way
only. Diseases are now treated
quite differently from the manner of
thirty Or forty years ago.
Manufacturers who once took
no note Of the waste or offal of their
several machines have been COM
PEELED to make a study of how to
utilize the waste that there may be
no waste.
"Listen for awhile to one who
grows clover every year and knows
what he is talking about. He says:
For one hundred years it has been
almost an axiom with agriculturists
that the plant could make no use
whatever of the free nitrogen of the
atmosphere.
at is we'll known to our hearers,
or should be that-while nitrogen is
the most expensive element OF fer
tility, costing from II to IS cents
per pound, when bought in the
shape of commercial fertilizer, four
fifths of the atmosphere itself is nj
trogen, and enough passes over
every square rod of the farm every
hour to fertilize a whole quarter sec
ton for a year if it could only be
made available.
Farmers buy grain for feed stuffs
and pay in proportion to its con-