The Apple: The Kansas Apple, the Big Red Apple; the Luscious, Red-Cheeked First Love of the Farmer's Boy; the Healthful, Hearty Heart of the Darling Dumpling. What It Is; How to Grow It; Its Commercial and Economic Importance; How to Utilize It.
Science
The Apple: The Kansas Apple, the Big Red Apple; the Luscious, Red-Cheeked First Love of the Farmer's Boy; the Healthful, Hearty Heart of the Darling Dumpling. What It Is; How to Grow It; Its Commercial and Economic Importance; How to Utilize It.
Apples
I prune with a saw or knife, cutting out the crossed limbs and shaping
the top. I think it pays while the trees are young. I never thin the
fruit while on the trees. My trees are in mixed plantings. I fertilize
my orchard with stable and hog manure; I think it very beneficial, and
advise its use on all soils, especially on old orchards. I pasture my
orchard with hogs, and think it advisable at times. It pays. My trees
are troubled with canker-worms, roundhead borers, and leaf rollers, and
my apples with codling-moths. I have never sprayed, but intend to this
spring, in April and May. I am going to use a dust sprayer with London
purple and Paris green for canker-worm. I pick my apples by hand from a
ladder into a sack, sort into two classes by hand, pack in a two-bushel
crate, fill full, with blossom end up, mark with the grade, and ship to
market-place by freight. I retail apples in the orchard; sell my best
ones in crates; feed the culls to hogs. Best market is at home; never
tried distant markets. We sun-dry some apples for home use, then heat on
the stove and put into paper sacks. I am quite successful in storing
apples in bulk, boxes and barrels in a cellar. Ben Davis, Winesap and
Little Romanite keep best. Sometimes I have to repack stored apples
before marketing, losing about one per cent. of them. Prices have been
about sixty cents per bushel, and dried apples five to six cents;
evaporated apples, seven to eight cents.
* * * * *
ALBERT PERRY, Troy, Doniphan county: Have lived in Kansas forty-one
years; have an apple orchard of 5000 trees, planted from five to
twenty-four years. I grow for commercial purposes, first, Jonathan;
second, Ben Davis, York Imperial, and Mammoth Black Twig. Ten years
hence those who now plant Ben Davis will probably regret it. [?] There
is a growing demand for a better eating apple. I now plant Jonathans and
York Imperial. The latter is a good bearer, and a vigorous tree, however
aged. For family orchard, I would advise adding to these Rambo and Fall
Strawberry [Chenango]. I have tried and discarded many others. Prefer
bottom, loess formation, near Missouri river. No slope has any advantage
over another. Cultivate with plow and harrow, growing corn as an orchard
crop for five years; then seed to clover and blue grass only. Do not
care for windbreaks. Where there are windbreaks apples on trees do not
get sufficient air. I protect from rabbits by tying corn-stalks about
young trees. Prune some. I believe all apple blossoms are
self-pollinating, and there is no advantage in mixed plantings. Need no
fertilizers but clover in my locality. Believe it pays to pasture the
orchard with horses in the winter; if you have a stack of hay for them
to go to they will not harm the trees. Am troubled with codling-moth and
apple curculio. Spray for codling-moth ten days after the apple is
formed, and believe I have reduced their number. I use the knife for
borers.
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