The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1910-03-03
APPLE GROWING IN
MANITOWOC COUNTY.

Mr.. EDITOR
The Manitowoc County Horticulture
al Society has succeeded in creating a
wide spread interest in growing fruit,
especially apples, in our County.
Several of the members have declar-
ed their intention to set out orchards
of considerable size and quite a number
propose to set out quantity of trees of
the choicest varieties. They intend to
send for nursery trees of varieties sue
cessfully grown in localities far south
of this, with the intention of testing
them here. | will be glad to see the
experiment tried, but am not sanguine
enough to expect very great results.
Still, you cannot tell. Their plan has
considerable merit. Each person is to
set out three or four trees Of the var
ieties agreed upon in various locations
giving them the best of care and culti-
walton. This will give the advantage
of testing the various kinds under dit
ferent conditions of location and soil.
By comparing notes as to results, it
can be determined whether any of the
varieties are adapted to our severe eli
mate and the conditions under which
they can be raised if possible to raise
them. If they fail, the loss will be but
slight for each one.
n,,, Il mo 20 ip ,i ,rnpp,,l o,,1 n,,,, ,rpnu.-
ing season short. The writer for the
past six years has kept partial record
of our temperature. In five of these
years we have had frostS as late as the
18th of June and as early as the l4th
to 18th of September. This leaves us
practically only from ninety TO one
hundred days in which we must grow
and ripen our fruit. Light frosts as p
rule do not injure mostapples if follow
cloudy weather. The severe blizzard
in early October last found many orch
ards with the fruit still on the trees,
and though the trees were covered
with snow and hung with icicles for
two or three days, yet the fruit was
practically uninjured. The sky was
clouded and the rise in temperature
gradual so that when the sun came out
there was no frost in the fruit. Had
the hard freeze been at once followed
by warm sunshine the fruit would have
been spoiled beyond redemption. The
greatest injury in such case is that both
growth and ripening processes are ar
rested.
We must seek for varieties of apples
that can make rapid growth and prac-
tically mature their fruits in the
short period of from ninety to a
hundred and twenty days. AS a rule
the longer any fruit and especially ap-
pies, can remain on the tree, the more
mellow, better favored and highly col
ored it is. In the apple growing sec
tions of the Ozark mountains of South
ern Missouri and Northwestern Arkan-
sas, apple trees may blossom in early
May and fruit hang upon the trees un-
til November without injury. The
same is true of Colorado, Western Ore
gon and Washington.
We cannot expect to raise in our
County, the varieties of fruit adapted
to such conditions as these. Either the
trees must change their habit of growth
to conform to conditions here or we
must fail. That trees do change the
habit of growth on being removed to
different climate is a well established
fact, and upon this fact rests the hope
of success in the experiment referred
to. The problem is; can trees which
have been in the habit of maturing
their fruits in Il warm summer of five
months be made to mature them in a
cool summer of three and half months,
without materially changing the quail
ity or character Of the fruit? 1t is
possible, not probable.
a line of experiment | would like
10 SEE lfleu by some OF our members,
would be to test some of the newer
hardy winter apples, varieties that have
succeeded in attitudes similar to our
own. Some of these which have sue
ceeded in the Dakotas, Minnesota,
Northern Michigan and New England
are the following: Gideon, Belle de-
Boskoop, Wagener, Boiken, Rolfe, Salo-
me, Sutton Beauty, Peerless and On
tario. These are all hardy winter APP
pies of good quality and never to my
knowledge have been tested in our
County. | think the chance of success
much greater along this line.
j. 5. ANDERSON.