Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1915-04-22
COMP PARISONS MADE
WITH OTHER PLACES
Would Like to See aDecid
ed Step Forward Says
It Can Be Done
BY FREDERICK CRANFIELD
Secretary State Horticultural Society
Madison.

Secretary State Horticultural Society,
Madison.
In former communication to this
paper / said things about fruit
growing in Sauk County that may have
irritated some residents of the county.
desire to say that no expression of
mine, either written or on the platform
has ever been of malicious intent. |
merely want to see 1".s0mething doing"
in the orchard4in around Baraboo, more
than is being done now. l am sorry in
one way. if anyone's feelings were
hurt but if sufficient number of peo-
pie should get thoroughly ''riled upon
this matter there might be something
done.
know Sauk County has the goods,
| want someone to deliver them Who
will do it? There ought to be fifty
orchards of 100 acres each in the coun-
ty and hundred of SO acres each, max
ing ten thousand acres. Even that is
about tenth of the orchard acreage
oflWayne county, New York.
How can 80 much be accomplished?
There are two ways. One is by individ-
ual effort, the planting of orchards by
men who are skilled in fruit growing
You already have just a few of these
but more are needed. This looks to nae
like mighty good time to get into ap-
lie raising in Wisconsin. The expected
crash has come in that far western or
chard business and apple trees in Mon
tana and other Pacific coast states are
being dug out by thousands of acres to
make room for alfalfa.
The Ben Davis section of Missouri and
Arkansas is going backward3 instead of
forward and the Eastern growers of
winter apples are not happy. The pop
ulation of the country is now about 100,
900, 600 and in ten years it should be
100000, 900.
Somebody will have to raise the ap-
pies. However no one should go into
the business unless he has a fair
amount of capital, Gt may be largely
lin Iand) some brains and knows
enough about fruit growing to run the
business first hand.
The other way is the corporation or
company method. There are several
different forms or plans under which
company orchards can be established.
Some of these, which may be convenlen-
tly grouped under the unit share
head, are the ones followed by the eX-
ploiters in the west few years ago
and are now in much disrepute. Most
of them were swindling games from
the beginning as many Wisconsin peo-
pie can now Lmournfully testify. We
want nothing Of that kind in this state.
The plan that appeals to me as the
best in the joint stock company. Under
this plan fifteen hundred acres are be-
ing developed in the Kicpapoo or GAYS
Mills district.
Four years ago little group of men
in Milwaukee, letter carriers, looking
abouts for safe place to invest their
savings, formed stock company. and
bought farms of 100 acres at Gays Mills,
planted 40 acres to apples and hired a
man to care for the farm and orchard.
Later and through the next three
years, eleven other and similar com
panies have been formed, each buying
a farm planting an orchard on part OF
it until now, at the completion of the
1915 planting, there are over 600 acres
planted and by 1920 there will be z, OO(
acres, all in one solid block of farms.
Now the one essential to success il
orchard companies, or business of any
other kind for that matter, is compe
tent management. A company operat