The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-22
APPLES IN NEW ENGLAND
(By George French.)

TWO or three years ago man
 bought a farm not far from Boston on
 which there were about 400 Baldwin
 apple trees. They were about 25 years | old. and had been. conscientiously neg Iected- They. were in bad condition, 1 and the new owner debated whether he would try to have them doctored up or cut them down. He was strongly inclined, for the axe. but he relented enough to consult tree doctor as to
 the Initial cost for necessary surgery and tonics The tree man said about
 $7O0 to start The owner declared for
 the axe. But there was bit of par ley. and at length, in spirit of bra
 Vado, the owner offered the tree man all the first crop of apples after treat nent and half of the two succeeding crops, in lieu of a fee in cash. The tree man accepted He put about $500 into the orchard at once. It was April. He sold about 1000 barrels of No- 1
 apples that fall, filled the owners eel lar with seconds, made lot of cider, and had all the apples his firm could use, beside giving away many lots. He got back about two dollars for every
 one he spent, and had two half yearly
 crops coming to him. He turned the
 orchard back to the owner, having
 demonstrated what proper treatment will do for neglected New England or charde-
 This is a sample. I could go on and fill page with just such stories, all
 true, and all verifab1e from data I
 have on file. And then would not have begun to tell the tale about the | apple possibilities of New England. The West or the Northwest have moth | ing than can compare with the possi-
 bilities of New ESngland-the proved, 1 demonstrated possfbiIities-in the way
 of apple raising.
 There is 8. reason. It is the land and the climate God made New England the potential orchard of the world. The men of New England are begin
 ming to realize what riches there are in tIfe rocky pastures that they have
 hated to have assessed at a few dollars per acre. The scientific reasons have
 been stated by the Department of Ag-a ricuiture, and by many experts.
 have not space to go into the matter, New England that make the apple land The rocks have made nearly all
 of the New England land. But little of it has come from other sections
 through the agency of water. But lft- tie of 1t has been blown from other regions by the winds. It has been slowly formed by the disintegrat ton of the bottom rock formation that under lies New England. That rock has the chemicals that are necessary for good apple culture Therefore the native soil of most New England sections has in it the essential salts and chemicals that must be present in the best ap- pies. The rest is easy. It Is easy to supply the humus to make the trees grow It is not practicable to supply the chemicals to the soil.
 Thus 1t happens that while the fa- nous apple regions of the West and Nor thNeet produce beautiful apples, and apples having fine flavor of their
 own, they cannot grow the New Eng land apples with the New England ha- vor and character The best apple that the West can produce cannot compare
 with the best New England apple.
 That is a truism that does not have to be argued. The New 1Sn gland Bald win, Rhode Island Greening, Roxbury
 Russett Hubbardson, Nonesuch, Old
 Nonesuch, Spy, Porter, Gravenstein,
 Yellow Belldower, Red Astrachan, and
 dozen others than can be mentioned,
 do not come out of the West
 In New England also the cropss far
 exceed those produced in the West
 The trees are larger, and it is a fact 1 that they bear barrels to. pecks from 1 the western trees remember a fa-
 nous apple grower from the Middle 1 West once told me, with great pride that his trees averaged a bushe1 each Bless him! How small that quantity seems to us New Engianders who have been reckoning our apple crops in terms of barrels per tree. And in New | England the trees live and bear for a
 
 1 of care, and many thousands have 1iv-| l ed to that age, or longer, and borne
 good fruit every other year, that have had no care at all-Just have not been
 cut down and burned in the kitchen
 stoves The western apple tree has a very limited life, in coInparison-
 But ''the proof of the pudding is in
 chewing the string" as they say in the New England classics, so let us
 see what has been done, by citing a. l few experiences I won't give the
 names or towns, but I have them, ev-# cry one, and can produce them if nec-a
 essary Your real New England far
 mer does not court personal notoriety.1 | He likes to talk about his farm, and
 what he does on it and with it, but he hates to be pointed out in print. Facts 1 are pretty good arguments It is what the land really does, rather than what 1 1t may be supposed to be capable of.
 doing that establishes the standing of 1 a section, for apples, potatoes, wheat,s 1 cattle, hogs, anything else. Let me say, right hereS that no one in New England is so foolish as to claim or think that there is not a lot of good apple land in other states in New York, the Middle States, some parts of the South, etc. But they do l not raise New England apples any where but in New England, and there l is no other section where the possible profit is as large Land values are very low in New England, and trans-| portation is cheap. A car of apples from the farthest point in New Eng
 alnd to market costs around $50, while from Oregon to market it costs about ten times that sum. In New England the good money for apples is now com l ing from renovated orchards
 rescued from poverty by a little com | non-sense and cash The state of
 Maine bought farm with 3,1O0 apple
 trees. The first years crop was 90 bar
 rels Eight hundred trees were cut down, and in 1912, three years after the purchase, the crop of apples totalled Ia, 3,2oO barrels. At the Boston fruit show l last year one man showed il barrels
 of apples from one 20-year-old tree. | Another man showed 95 pounds from a