Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1915-11-04

tentlOn. He dev0tes more time
and thought to his EsseWah orch
ard than to any other one phase
OF his many business interests. It
IS no difficult, task for the visitor
to the orchard to learn that the
captain gives it personal atten
ton and makes a close study Of
fruit growing, for In riding or
walking over the orchard, cut OF.
the thousands of trees therein he
can point to them and tell how
many apples such and such a tree
bore, the variety, the age of the
tree, whether or not he grafted1t
and any other information to show
that he is perfectly familiar with
all that Is doing on the premises.
No Farming In Orchard
An interesting feature of the
orchard is that it is narrowed
once or twice a year and moved
down In the fall, but for the past
few years no effort has been made
to grow anything but a fruit crop
therein, although a little clover
was cut during the past year. The
trees are planted 80 1-3 feet apart,
therefore extensive cultivation
could not be carried on when the
trees reach a considerable size.
Erects Modern Apple House.
Capt. Toms during the past
summer erected what Mr.. Graves,
ia prominent fruit grower of Hay
wood county, declared to be the
best cold air storage plant for
fruit In North Carolina. It has
dimensions 80x22 feet and con
sists of two stories with a roof Of
tile. The structure is of cement
blocks ten inches thick, the lower.
floor being Of cement and the
whole house being absolutely air.
tight. In the middle of the lower
floor, extending from one end of
the house to the other is a depres-
sion In the cement and this CON
tains water to keep the fruit from
sbrivelling. The windows In the
sides of the house are of double
thickness. Airducts lead into the
house through the lower floor and
the air finds its way out up pipes
leading through the roof. At this
! season the airducts are opened in
time to let the cool night air in
and are closed early next morning
$50 as to keep cool. air in the house
| during the heat of the day. In
winter the reverse plan is resorted
to so as to get warm air. The
airducts are provided with caps
for closing them when no further
circulation of air is wanted, a tenn
perature of about 81 degrees be-
ing desired. The apple house has
! a capacity for storing a vast guam
tity of fruit. 1t is situated Oh
the hillside at the lower end Of
the orchard and a driveway
passes the door on the lower floor
and another passes the one on tho
upper floor and at the opposite
end of the building. Nearly all
the fruit of the orchard is hauled
down instead of up hill.
Small Crop But Good Price.
Chief among the varieties of
fruit grown in the Essewah orch
ards are the Ben Davis, Virginia
Beauties, Paragon, York Imperial,
: Winesaps, Spitzenberg and Law
vers.
The crop of this orchard like
that of all others throughout the
, United States was small this year
owing to the blight~last spring.
The prospects for fruit were SO.
poor that Captain Toms sprayed
only one time.~He gathered about.
800 bushels of fruit and this is
finding a ready market at $50
per bushel. With as good a crop
as the Essewah produced last
year Captain Toms says there
would be big money in growing
apples at so cents per bushel
Had the market been slow this
year and Capt. Toms had seen lit
TO hold his fruit he would have lost
a good deal of it by rot on account
OF only one spraying. Ordinarily
he can keep his fruit, nearly all Of
which consists of late varieties,
through winter into late spring.
Has Two Other Orchards.
While Capt. Toms has an orch !
ard of about 1900 trees at Mt.
Hebron and another of about 1,00n
at his ginseng farm on Green
River which bring fairly good re
turns, he does not give them the
attention the Essewah orchard