Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1912-04-26

which everything that have de-
2 scribed to you so far had been
, done and apparently well done
? the orchard was bearing from nine
! TO twelve hundred bushels OF APP
, pies per acre and yet the crop was
practically worthless. There is,
2 therefore, one more factor TO be
considered. and that is thinning.
This orchard was Gano, Jonathan
4 avis orchard of about fifteen
years of age, and each tree had
from three to five thousand little
u- of under-siZe.. shrunken APP
Piles. The apples were OF little val
ne and the trees were breaking
down and being ruined. If half or
two thirds of those apples had beef
lhinned out in the beginning of the
season, the remainder would have
produced crop as heavy as the
trees could bear of better develop
ed and standard size apples. There
would have been enough vitality
in the tree to develop fruit buds
for another year and everybody
would have been happy. AS it is,
this Orchardist got an immense
crop of unstable fruit and next
year this orchard will not bear at
all, since il is impossible for tree
to feed fruit buds under such an
excessive load. Two or three cents
expended in thinning would have
made 80 cents difference in the
worth of the apples in the fall.
And, by the way, while | think
of it, let me suggest to you that
you begin thinning as soon as
young trees first begin to bear.
The first year or so that a young
orchard begins bearing the crop
is not worth the expense of spray
ing and handling, the trees need all
of their energy TO develop frame
work for carrying the loads of the
future years and in every way it
is better to pull off the few ap-
plies that appear here and there;
and yet to the man that is de-
veloping the young orchard it is
too much like pulling tooth to
pull off one of these apples. For
this reason it is good discipline.
If you begin at that time and learn
to pull apples off in order to make
greater profits in the future, il
will not be hard to keep it up and
thin your fruit when the
orchard Seaches the bearing stage.
And even after all this is done,
Ihe problem of fruit growing has
not yet been solved. With a fine
crop of standard sized, sound fruit
IN his trees, the orchardist faces
he problem of picking, packing
md marketing and right here there
lave been more failures in the
past than in any other part of the
work, except possibly spraying. |
,nOw two neighbors with orchards !
ide by side where one of them re-
eiVed 2 i-2 cents per buShel for 1
lis apples more than they cost,
While the other man received 90,
nd right at this point, LEI me tell /
GU, comes the parting of the ways
/ is one business to handle ground
o cultivate, to irrigate, to prune
nd to spray, and it is another
usiness to grade and market fruit.
nd in my travels through the frui
ections of the western part of
merica, l have become more and
lore satisfied that those valleys
-hich have been most uniformly
in the marketing of l
leir fruit are the ones that have
laced this part of the work in
le hands of the business man re-
ardless of his knowledge of the
'chards and soils. One of the
est fruit handlers that | ever
lme in contact with is as helpless
a baby when you get him away
ON his warehouse and into the
ehard. and on the other hand,
me OF the worst failures in the l.
arketing end have been made by -
'eviously successful fruit growers.
The western orchardist has
lnderful opportunity. the choic-
{ soils. the never-ending sunshine
ID an abundance of irrigation wa
r are his. Nature has been lavish
her bounties. Everything that
es to make success is before
m. What he must furnish is in
ligent supervision, energetic
and love of his
ling, tempered by conservative
siness sense. These are The es-
ntials of success In any line but =
no line of human endeiNlnr Will