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 cultivate my orchard from early spring to the 1st of September, using
a plow, cultivator, and disc; I plant corn in a young orchard, and cease
cropping after eight years, and plant nothing in a bearing orchard.
Windbreaks are essential on the south and west, and I would make them of
Russian mulberries. For rabbits I rub rabbits' blood on the trees twice
during the winter. Borers I cut out the first year; after that I drown
them out by cultivation. I prune my trees while they are small, to give
shape. I think it pays, as you do not have to cut off large branches
when grown. Do not have to thin fruit here in Kansas. I do not plant a
solid block of any one kind of trees; I intermingle the varieties in
alternate rows, and insure more perfect pollination. I fertilize my
orchard with stable litter; it pays especially well on sandy soil, and I
would advise its use on all soils. Don't expect your trees to produce
something for nothing; feed them. I do not pasture my orchard; it is not
advisable, and does not pay. My trees are troubled with canker-worm,
tent-caterpillar, bud moth, root aphis, bag-worm, flathead borer,
roundhead borer, woolly aphis, twig-borer, and oyster-shell bark-louse,
and my apples with codling-moth. I do not spray. Hunt the insect eggs
and nests in your trees, and destroy the source of much loss to your
fruit this season. In picking, I use a ladder to reach the apples in the
top of the trees; put them in a grain sack over my shoulder with a stick
in the mouth; have gathered sixty bushels per day for weeks at a time in
this way. Prices have been from one dollar to two dollars per bushel,
and dried apples five to eight cents per pound.
* * * * *
A. D. EINSEL, Greensburg, Kiowa county: I have lived in the state twelve
years. I plant thrifty one-year-old trees, in holes large enough to
receive the roots, cover the roots with earth, and then pour in a pail
of water. When this is soaked away fill the hole nearly full of earth. I
cultivated my orchard to corn, using a spring-tooth harrow, to keep the
soil loose and kill the weeds. Am going to plant another apple orchard.
I think western Kansas will yet grow apples.
* * * * *
A. N. PATTERSON, Ford, Ford county: I have lived in Kansas seventeen
years. Have an apple orchard of 100 trees five years old. I fertilize my
orchard with stable litter. Do not pasture my orchard; do not think it
advisable. I do not irrigate.
* * * * *
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