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
A. MUNGER, Hollis, Cloud county: I have lived in Kansas fifteen years;
have an apple orchard of seventy-five trees twelve inches in diameter,
eighteen feet high, seventeen years old. I prefer for market Ben Davis,
Missouri Pippin, and, to a limited extent, Yellow Transparent and
Grimes's Golden Pippin, and for a family orchard add Early Harvest and
Maiden's Blush. Have tried and discarded the Willow Twig on account of
blight and rot. I prefer bottom land, with a loose subsoil, and young
and stocky trees. I plant my orchard to potatoes, beans and vines for
ten years, and use a cultivator that keeps three inches very mellow, and
cease cropping when impossible to cultivate. I grow weeds in the orchard
and mow them. Windbreaks are not essential, but are very desirable;
would make them of Osage orange, Russian mulberries, or box-elder. Set
the first row four feet apart, the second six inches, and never trim;
the third six feet. For rabbits I use traps and gun. I hunt the borers
and encourage the birds. I prune my trees so as to give air and
sunshine; think it pays. Do not thin the fruit while on the trees. My
apples are in mixed plantings. I fertilize my orchard in the winter with
stable litter fresh from the stable; it appears to do good, and would
advise its use, with judgment, on all soils. I pasture my orchard with
hogs and calves. I do not think it advisable among young trees. My trees
are troubled with leaf-roller, and my fruit with codling-moth. I spray
just after the blossom falls, with Paris green, for the codling-moth.
Prices have been from 25 cents to $1 per bushel. What the future of
apple-growing in northern central Kansas may be, it is of course
impossible to tell, but from the success of the few orchards that have
been planted, and after being planted have received some attention
besides that bestowed by calves and pigs, it would seem well worth a
trial. There are years when the best attention possible cannot prevent
damage and some loss from drought, especially on upland. For this reason
bottom land would seem more suitable for an orchard in this county, even
though subject to some disadvantages. In some orchards on low land only
a few feet above the water-level, where a sandy subsoil admits of a free
natural subirrigation, the thrift and productiveness of the trees have
been unusually good. Cold seems to be dreaded less than hot, dry weather
in the latter part of the summer, although late spring frosts sometimes
do damage. Even the traditional "north slope" might have its advantages
somewhat balanced in this county by the valley lands that retain a large
amount of moisture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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