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
The best trees to plant are two years old, the lowest limb or limbs not
over two feet from the ground. We grow most of our trees from our own
root grafts. Cultivation: We cultivate for the first five years, by
throwing the soil first to and then from the trees, with a single or a
double turning plow, and grow only corn. At five years from planting we
sow the ground to clover, and this with other growths, such as weeds, is
left on the ground as a mulch and fertilizer. We have never used any
windbreaks at any of our orchards. Think they would be an advantage in
some localities. We use traps for rabbits, knife and wire for borers. We
prune very little, such as removing broken limbs. We have never
fertilized any of our orchards. We do not believe it pays to pasture
orchards, and do not allow it.
The insects that trouble us most are: Canker-worm, tent-caterpillar,
fringed-wing bud moth, handmaid-moth or yellow-necked caterpillar,
roundheaded borer and the tussock-moth caterpillar on our trees; and
codling-moth, gouger and tree cricket on and in our fruit. We spray
annually, using a horse-power machine, illustrated in former reports of
the State Horticultural Society, for the leaf-eating insects named,
using London purple and clear water, sometimes adding lime. We spray
before the blossom opens, for bud moth, canker-worm and
tent-caterpillar, and after the petals have fallen for codling-moth,
tussock-moth, and fall web-worm. We have been successful except as to
bud moth and fall web-worm. We believe we have greatly reduced the
codling-moth by spraying, and we know we have destroyed the canker-worm.
Have never successfully combated borers, excepting with knife and wire.
Fall web-worms are burned in the tree with a gasoline torch, or the
small limbs with webs are removed and burned. We have as yet found no
particular method for fighting the bud moth successfully.
We gather our apples by hand in common two-bushel seamless sacks, used
in the same manner as for sowing grain. A strap of heavy leather is
attached, making it easy for the shoulder. A hook and ring are also put
on to facilitate the removal of the sack when emptying. We prefer common
straight ladders, with sides from sixteen to twenty inches apart at the
bottom and six inches at the top, rounds fourteen inches apart. We use
bushel boxes for hauling from the orchard to packing-house. We sort into
three grades: No. 1, No. 2, and culls. No. 1's are all sound and firm
apples, of about from two and one-fourth to two and one-half inches in
diameter, the size of the smallest depending on the variety. We put in
the No. 2 grade those that have any defects barring them from the first
grade, yet they make a good second-class for immediate use; we also pack
in this grade any sound apples that run uniformally small.
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