The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-09

ssssssessssssssssssssssss" Wait until next year." said Junior. Then we'll begin-just begin-to- get
 results. After that they'll come fast. We are not going to have any crop fail
 ures unless we are careless, and we are going to have peaches from early in the season until late. Father, I'm going to Show you what scientific farming
 means. This is childs play compared
 with the drudgery you endured. We
 work hard only in spraying and pick
 ing and packing time. You worked
 hard all the time. You had a slaves
 job. This is a gentleman's job, and
 it will pay-well, it will pay 10 to 20 times as much"
 It seemed to the father at the time
 that the young man was talking ex-
 travag gantly, but he was not Every
 thing he predicted has come true, and
 more. The spring following his boast
 to his father he had oil heaters through out the orchard. In blossom time the thermometer was watched carefully. By an electrical arrangement a gong was set ringing in the farm house whenever the mercury reached a certain degree.
 At night the gong awakened Junior and
 his men in ample time to see that every one of the oil stoves was lighted. There was an electric connection to every one of the heaters by which the wick was ignited the same instant the gong was set ringing, but the men had to turn out just the same and build smudge
 fires if necessary. Smudge fires were not necessary, however. The heat ra- diated from the barrel-like oil stoves so
 that the frost was kept from the trees.
 There was no losing of blossoms. Blos-
 soms mean fruit if properly looked after.
 Juniors father never saw such things
 as oil heaters under trees before to keep them warm and laughed boisterously the first time he came upon them. But he did not laugh that fall. Through careful spra ying, thorough cutivating and scien- tifc pruning, especial attention being given to new wood because the best fruit
 comes on the new limbs, Junior got crop tha6 year that amazed the old man. Not
 only did he get a crop bigger than the old orchard ever yielded before, but he
 got a bigger price, One end of scientific faI ming today is in good selling. That
 one crop brought more than fruits, grain
 and hogs had brought before. It almost
 reconciled Juniors father to the oil stoves and the mixing machine and the sky scraper sprayer, the new-fangled cultiVa- tors and the queer sort of men Junior in- vited to the farm at times who apparently never handled blow, but talked most authoritatively about all agricultural sub: jects Robert Franklin Junior is the Peach Prince of Pennsylvania today. There is nothing that science knows about the peach that he has not utilized. Pennsyl-
 vania is not supposed to be peach state,
 but it is most decidedly peach producing so far as his portion of 1t Is concerned.
 His farm has expanded year by year and
 his crops have grown larger and larger.
 From some of his trees he gathers four crates of fruit. He does not believe in quantity. however, so much as qual1ty. There is nothing so profitable all through
 that county now as peach growing. Dr. chards no longer are left to shift for | themselves. They are cleaned as care fully as gardens. Junior FranlSlins
 methods are carried out in every detail. Where the hills do not act as barrier wind shields are built to protect the trees One acre of fruit land is worth | ter to twenty of corn, and the more care | fully it is guarded and nourished the
 more valuable it becomes. Everybody in the valley Is convert to scientific farm | ing and no one is more ardent in claim- | ing it's virtues than Robert the Second. l Copyright, 1911, by Richard Spillane)