The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1893-09-30

BARRELS AND BARRELS AND BARRELS.
the time for picking is at hand. Zone
of the tiveliest, driyingist times they is
in the hull year" as an apple grower,
who is proud of his success as such, de-
scribed the apple harvest the other day.
Apples grow in most parts of the United
States north of certain line, but there
are some regions where they are staple
crop, and there you may see such rows
of trim, well kept apple trees, such wide
extending orchards, as, if you are new
conner, will make you open your eyes for
pure wonder
1t is a question in my mind which
presents the most attractive sight-an
apple orchard all white with blossoms
under the blue of an early summer sky
that is relieved here and there with the
snowy fieeces of summer clouds, or the
same orchard in the autumn when its
boughs are bending under the weight of
full crop of red and russet and green
fruit. shall never forget the first time
| saw the orchards that lie between
the famous ridge road and Lake Ontario
in level western New York. Orchards
were not an unfamiliar sight to me, but
such orchards / had never dreamed of.
1t was in June. The air was heavy with
perfume and vibrant with the notes of
song birds, for it was before the ugly
English sparrow had come to America
and driven the native feathered mu-
sicians from their own. My boyish eyes
had always been used to picturesque ir-
regularities of hill and valley, but the
everywhere extending fruit farms of
this, to me, new region more than made
up for lack of diversity in the land
scape.
The orchards I had known usually
consisted of % or at most 80 trees which
stood near the farmhouses and were re-
garded more as luxury than as means
for aiding to the income of the farmers.
The orchards I now beheld were acres
and acres in extent, and whole sections
of 1000 trees would be devoted to one
variety of apples. Baldwins and Green
ings and Seek-No- Furthers and Russets
and Northern Spies and others of good
marketable quality were cultivated sys-
tematically and scientifically.
The harvest apples that had been so
much Of feature in the little orchards
l knew best were prominent, was told,
in these big orchards only by their alb
sence. To be sure, once in awhile a
farmer would allow one or two trees to
be grated with early sweet stock just
to furnish eating OF cooking apples for
the summer and early fall, but the raising
of apples was not here an incidental
matter, it was business throughout.
There were practically no migrated
trees, bearing only knotty, gnarled nat
ural fruit. There were no isolated fence
corner trees. There were no unpruned
trees and no unskilled pruning, for in
such fruit land ais had now become a
resident of there was enough Of that
work to bring into existence a careful
study of pruning as an exact science,
and whenever man put his knife to q
tree in one of those magnificent orchards
he knew just what he was to cut off and
Just why he was to do it.
\ AT the time of which / write the rails
ing of apples was at its best as profit.
able business. Two, three and even four
dollars a barrel we're obtained for the
fruit every fall, ard every year the acre