Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1893-04-27
STOCK IN ORCHARDS.
Low Headed Trees-Pasturing with sheep
Swine and Chickens.

Swine and Chickens.
Following is report in brief of a pa.
per read at the eighteenth annual session
of the New Jersey horticultural society
by Mr.. Ira j. Blackwell. He said:
1t may be thought that he who will al.
low any kind of stock in the orchard is
not practical fruitgrower. There are
more sides than one to most questions,
and the problem of growing good fruit
at the least cost is an interesting subject.
In this country of high winds and burn
ing sunshine low topped trees are ne
cessity, or, more properly speaking, are
not so easily blown over by high winds
or scalded by the sun, and the flat
headed borer seldom works where the
tree is shaded, very important points in
favor of low branched trees. Another
very strong argument for low trees is
the better facility of harvesting the fruit,
and as ordinarily grown, especially in
unsprayed orchards, there will be many
windfalls, which can he marketed for
various uses, wilhelm cultivated orchards,
as the term is usually applied, the fruit
is understandable for any purpose until
washed, which costs about as much as
the fruit will sell for. Perhaps the
strongest argument against the plow in
the orchard is the washing of the land,
but the plow is little worse than the cul-
tivator or harrow
Peaches may be grown perhaps not
cheaper by mulching, but just as good
as by cultivation, and this mulch may be
either weeds, stones or dirt hauled round
them. The trees will grow just as well,
perhaps better. No one will advocate
putting young orchard in grass. Sew
eral years of cultivation must intervene
before the trees get sufficient start to be
able to take care of themselves so far as
cultivation is concerned.
My object is to show that low headed
trees, with needful pruning and liberal
fertilizing, will grow good fruit, but
practically better fruit without the
plow and cultivator than with, and low
headed apple and pear trees will bear
considerably younger than trees trained
high enough to admit of team passing
under the limbs. The best method is to
pasture sheep, swine and chickens in the
orchard after the trees are well estab-
lished.
Sheep are great feeders, and few weeds
can grow where they run. The oil from
the wool is probably a good remedy for
the apple tree borer. Sheppard hogs will
not interfere with each other except at
lambing time. A hog is the only good
plowman for the orchard that works for
The chicken is an untiring bug
catcher.
With the bearing varieties that are sal
able in the market, grown on low topped
trees, after being well established they
are seeded to grass and pastured with
sheep and swine, and the more chickens
in proportion the greater the profit, as the
chickens do better for the shade and
hundred well fed fowls to the acre will
1elp make the orchard thrifty. The chick
N and fruit combination is one of the best |
beneficial to each, provided |
you keep the chickens from roosting in
the trees. The hog combination has the
one drawback that sometimes the hogs
get to barking the trees, while, on the
other hand, know no other way to make
good, healthy pork SO cheap as in an APP
pie or pear orchard of sweet fruit, and
the orchard in grass, or preferably clio
yer, the fruit to ripen successfully from
July to December. No man that has hogs
TO eat the fallen apples can afford to pick
up the apples for the cider mill or still at
10 cents per bushel. The hogs will pay
better price clear of expenses.