The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-11

| We have had right together two very bad
 seasons for maturing fruits This year
 there is enormous crop of apples all
 over the Ozark range in Missouri and Ar kansas. The season, however, has been
 very unfavorable for apples, and favorable i for blight and bitter rot. These diseases i will cost the two states alone several
 millions of dollars. Blight and bitter rot
 are caused from climatic conditions, ex l tremes of weather, together with dis
 eased soil. This diseased soil comes large 1 ly from excessive rains.
 The condition of the weather caused the apples in these sections to ripen prema | turely, and right in our hot wether, so | they will not keep. The apples are drop ] ping badly from the trees. Besides this 1 the weather conditions have greatly as
 gravated the disease of bitter rot This l has held off all large and foreign buyers,
 so that there is practically no market at i all for our apples, and there seems to be no relief in sight. Many growers have i, offered their apples to any one who would go and pick them up and take them out : of the orchard The writer would be glad ] to have any come to his orchard and pick up and carry away bushels of fine apples l that are going to waste for want of !. market. These apples are of the finest quality for immediate use, but will last : only few days when off the tree. l Cold Storage Cornered. ; All the available cold storage in all the l big cities has been secured, but it is not
 nearly sufficient 10 accommodate the growers nor to hold all the apples, and as cold storage is the only solution of
 the problem, all the apples that cannot be gotten into cold storage will be lost.
 The Ozark Fruit Growers association is storing thousands of bushels in all the cities where cold storage is to be had
 and besides has shipped several trains of apples to New York for export. How this Will work out remains to be seen. We do not mean to convey the idea in giving these facts, that we have an over-pro- duction of apples, for while there is big crop, yet there would be a demand for
 them If they could be kept until needed
 Germany and England both need and could use our apples, but buyers are not
 going to buy until the weather becomes cooler. and when there is a prospect for
 the fruit to keep. There is no question in the mind of the writer but that apples will sell for a good price later on in the
 season, provided there are any left for sale.
 Spraying.
 This condition has brought out a num- Der of efforts to correct or stop the bit 'ei iot' all LII WHICH nave proven fall- ureS
 Spraying has been the most prominent of the efforts but so far has had no ef- feet whatever.
 l have no confidence in spraying trees for blight or for bitter rot in the fruit. 1 have watched the matter closely, and so Tar have no evidences that would prove to me any benefit from spraying The bet ter plan in my estimation is to locate and remove the cause, then produce the eff feet. The soil Is the proper place to begin to work against these diseases It would be fortunate if we can only get our soils properly drained and use large quanti- ties of lime to correct the acidity in our soil caused by these excessive rainfalls with hot scorching suns between showers The soil and air both being out of nor mai conditions, produce acidity in the soil and this in turn causes the blight in the trees and bitter rot in the fruit. The first thing, in my opinion, to prevent these diseases is to provide ample drainage, then use large quantities of lime, as only drainage and lime can put such soils in fine physical condition for growing fine
 fruit. Our orchard land must have drain age, and if this does not of itself-and if
 hardly ever does-take the acidity from the soil. then use lime. Every orchard. no
 matter what the condition of the soil should be Timed every three or four years eeh 4eo5e, usiiS not leSS than one ton Of lime per acre. Of course extremes of at
 mospheric conditions are not so easily managed. However, where the drainage is perfect, we can prevent to a very large degree this premature ripening and drop ping or the tree, by heavy mulching.
 keeping the soil over the roots, and the
 roots, too, from the effect of the ex- tremes of heat which follow excessive rains.
 When weather conditions are normal
 srd we have our normal rainfall properly
 distributed I never have any trouble with
 blight or bitter rot. So l am not at all alarmed simply because we happen to have tais unusually bad season, Dor would hesitate a moment In planting trees. in fact l nave just placed an order for
 trees to plant ttis fall. Recently l have beard growers tai kabout cutting down
 their or .hard. This woull be a yery lln-
 wise act; they hal better req dup and learn what their soils need and learn how trees feed and grow, and also learn that no tree will grow good fruit when the soil is water-soa aked with sour water.
 The reader who is interested in fruit growing might find 1t to his interest to send for my book on apple and peach growing.