The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-05-28
OUR BLACK HILLS FRUIT
O. Thomson Writes Of His Exper-
fences in This New and
Gro wing Industry.
PROPER VARIETIES SUCCEED.

An Example Of What Intelligent
Selection and Proper Care Has
Done Without Irrigation.
AS requested by you 7 will try and
give you briefly my experience in
fruit growing in western South
Dakota. In the spring Of 1881 I
commenced planting some fruit Of
different kinds. Ishipped my plants
by mail and at the same time l
planted few hundred apple root
gratis; but this was not satisfactory.
I lost nearly all of my planting.
Next year I shipped my plants and
root gratis by express, but still had
very poor success. That which I
made grow was nearly ali dead the
next spring. I tried again the next
year with nearly the same success.
During this time l paid Is cents per
pound in express from Bloomington
Illinois, to Rapid City. So this
made it rather expensive. paid
$l65 express on one pox Of trees and
plants in the spring Of 1888 and they
were nearly all dead when I received
them. In the spring of 1884 ship
ped by freight to Pierre and then by
team freight to the Hills, and this
time I got the stock through in bet
ter shape and made good part of
it grow. But then came another
backset. A large part Of the stock
and plants that 1 had bought and
planted were not true to name, and
this left me very much in the dark
again. However, / will not draw
on your patience by telling you all
of my ups and downs-more downs
than ups-but this 1 must say, it
was nearly impossible for nc to get
stock true to name. Up to and in
cluding 1885 l had planted about 25,
600 apple root gratis, with an assort-
ment Of other stock, and on the 9Th
day of June Of that year we had a
water spout that washed out nearly
all that had planted. This was my
fifth year and l had spent several
thousand dollars. Nevertheless I
was encouraged by having succeeded
with a few apples and crabs and
some small fruit; so in 1886 plant
ed $4,000 apple root gratis with an
assortment of other stock. [ plant
ed of the tried kinds and expert
mented with more every year, so
have tried nearly all the apples I
have heard O.. I have worked more
with the apple than with any other
fruit, and have now Of late years
been experimenting with western
fruit, such as is grown in Idaho,
Oregon and California
can now say that I have succeed
ed far beyond my expectations. I
have about II, 900 apple trees in Or
chard. Only one-half of these had
apples on last year-most of them
only few apples, but some of the
older trees had as much as one and
Cne-half barrels to the tree. | rails
ed last year over 1000 bushels of
apples, and we had the least rain of
any year in twenty. I fruited last
year the following kinds out of forty
two varieties of standard apples in
my orchards; Ihave placed them with
relation to their hardines and value.
Duchess Of Olderberg, Tetofsky.
Wealthy, Rawles Janet, Prices
Sw, ct, Whitney No. 20, Haas, Mann,
Walbridge, Baldwin, Ben Davis,
LongGeld, Iowa Beauty, Arthur,
Pewaukee and Red Astrachan.
These are all standards except Whit
ney No. 20, which is a hybrid. All
the crab apples do we'll except the
Transcendent.
Cherries.-I have 500 cherry trees
in orchard, mostly EARLY Richmond,
some English Morello and Black
Tartarian. Early Richmond is the
most profitable with me. The birds
do not bother them DIS much as thev
DC the Black Tartarian. I had last
year forty-tive bushels of cherries.
They were fine and sold for good
prices, as there were no other cher
ries OH the market when mine got