The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1910-08-18

New England can be reclaimed and
brought to the fertility of his magnifi-
cent orchards. New England now is
sprinkled with deserted houses and
rotting barns. mute monuments of
pttiful struggles lost to unfriendly
nature.
Worked 40 Conductor.
The pioneer Hale went into Con-
necticut soon after Roger Williams
and took up a river farm--a half
mile frontage on the river, running
back three miles. When John Hale
was born, there was but lean 80
acres left.
John went to New York and work
ed as a conductor on the horse car
lines, and a clerk In store. After
seven years the aged father sent for
him to come home to work the farm.
John Hale, twenty-three years old,
went to Connecticut and took up the
burden Of the mortgaged, stony patch
Of land.
He remembered solitary peach
tree of his ooyhood days, and deter
mined to plant the whole 35 acres
to peaches. The neighbors would
lean on the fence, shift their cuds
OF homegrown twist and wink sol
emnly at each other. The third year,
when the orchard was to bear, there
came q great drouth.
Young Hale worked all the harder,
but despair was heavy ON his heart.
The wire grass, which thrives In
was choking up the lanes
between the peach trees. Hale spent
weeks while the rain was withheld
hoeing and blowing under the wire
grass.
The result was that, while the to-
bacco wtthercd IN the fields. Hale got
a fair crop of peaches. He had
upon the principle of dry
dust mulch, which he
had secured in his efforts to kill out
the wire grass.
After that the neighbors spoke or
the Hale luck"
Other farmers bought prepared fer
tilizers at high prices. Young Hale
pored over the agricultural books
and government reports. He found
that the principal and costliest plant
food was nitrogen. The other farm
ers bought nitrogen by the pound.
Hale learned Of the great reservoirs
OF free nitrogen in the air. He began
to take tons OF this limitless supply,
''air plants"-clover, COW
peas and vetch--around his trees and
the plants under when they
had gathered their quota OF the i'm
pkrtant plant food. Potash and phos-
rJhorus were cheaper. He bought
these chemicals.
IL was this sort of luck" that made
the original homestead produce such
profits that Hale could buy up the
500 acres OF barren hillside, now one
Of the most productive orchards In
the world. He sold his first peaches
from a pushcnrt In Hartford. In July
he paid out $4,000 freight charges
on his Georgia crop alone.
Hale says Connecticut will raise as
fine apples as Oregon.
cit Is all a matter OF spraying" he
said. "The western apple grower
sprays q dozen times during the grow
Ing season. The eastern farmer
thinks he does well to spray the
trees once"
Luigi Pero il Hale's Italian fore
man, Luigi was waiter at the Wal
dorf until he went to pick peaches
for Hale one season. He never left.
He IL skilled farmer I'm the inten-
sive methods Of Italy.
Why don't you plant apple trees
with the peach trees"
he asked Hale once.
why, they'd choke of the peach
e." said Hale. Neither would
grow
You yive-a me interest In that or
chard, Meester Hale, and I make-a
dem trees grow fast"
Both Trees FIourishInq.
Hale laughed, but he decided to
take him up. Now, both sets OF trees
are fourishing, and the peach trees
Will produce a crop this fall.
1T will take 10 years for the ap-
Piles TO bear. but they will keep ON
for n century. The
Leach trees life Is only 10 or is
years. said Hale. so call the
peach trees my common stock. butt