PLANNING FOR THE TREES
The morning of September 17th a small frost fell,--just enough to curl
the leaves of the corn and show that it was time for it to be laid by.
Thompson, Johnson, Anderson, and the two men from the woods, who were
diverted from their post-splitting for the time being, went gayly to the
corn fields and attacked the standing grain in the old-fashioned way.
This was not economical; but I had no corn reaper, and there was none to
hire, for the frost had struck us all at the same time. The five men
were kept busy until the two patches--about forty-three acres--were in
shock. This brought us to the 24th. In the meantime the men and women
moved from the cottage to the more commodious farm-house. Polly had
found excuses for spending $100 more on the furnishings of this
house,--two beds and a lot of other things. Sunday gave the people a
chance to arrange their affairs; and they certainly appreciated their
improved surroundings.
The cottage was moved to its place on the line, and the last of the
seeding on the north forty was done. Ten tons of fertilizer were sown on
this forty-acre tract (at a cost of $250), and it was then left to
itself, not to be trampled over by man or beast, except for the
stretching of fences or for work around some necessary buildings, until
the middle of the following May.
We did not sow any wheat that year,--there was too much else to be done
of more importance. There is not much money in wheat-farming unless it
be done on a large scale, and I had no wish to raise more than I could
feed to advantage. Wheat was to be a change food for my fowls; but just
then I had no fowls to feed, and there were more than two hundred
bushels in stacks ready for the threshers, which I could hold for future
hens.
The ploughmen were now directed to commence deep ploughing on No.
14,--the forty acres set apart for the commercial orchard. This tract of
land lay well for the purpose. Its surface was nearly smooth, with a
descent to the west and southwest that gave natural drainage. I have
been informed that an orchard would do better if the slope were to the
northeast. That may be true, but mine has done well enough thus far,
and, what is more to the point, I had no land with a northeast slope.
The surface soil was thin and somewhat impoverished, but the subsoil was
a friable clay in which almost anything would grow if it was properly
worked and fed. It was my desire to make this square block of forty
acres into a first-class apple orchard for profit. Seven years from
planting is almost too soon to decide how well I have succeeded, but the
results attained and the promises for the future lead me to believe that
there will be no failure in my plan.
The three essentials for beginning such an orchard are: prepare the land
properly, get good stock (healthy and true to name), and plant it well.
I could do no more this year than to plough deep, smooth the surface,
and plant as well as I knew how. Increased fertility must come from
future cultivation and top dressing. The thing most prominent in my plan
was to get good trees well placed in the ground before cold weather set
in. At my time of life I could not afford to wait for another autumn, or
even until spring. I had, and still have, the opinion that a
fall-planted tree is nearly six months in advance of one planted the
following spring. Of course there can be no above-ground growth during
that time, but important things are being done below the surface. The
roots find time to heal their wounds and to send out small searchers
after food, which will be ready for energetic work as soon as the sun
begins to warm the soil. The earth settles comfortably about these roots
and is moulded to fit them by the autumn rains. If the stem is well
braced by a mound of earth, and if a thick mulch is placed around it,
much will be done below ground before deep frosts interrupt the work;
and if, in the early spring, the mulch and mound are drawn back, the
sun's influence will set the roots at work earlier by far than a spring
tree could be planted.
Other reasons for fall planting are that the weather is more settled,
the ground is more manageable, help is more easily secured, and the
nurserymen have more time for filling your order. Any time from October
15 until December 10 will answer in our climate, but early November is
the best. I had decided to plant the trees in this orchard twenty-five
feet apart each way. In the forty acres there would be fifty-two rows,
with fifty-two trees in each row,--or twenty-seven hundred in all. I
also decided to have but four varieties of apples in this orchard, and
it was important that they should possess a number of virtues. They must
come into early bearing, for I was too old to wait patiently for
slow-growing trees; they must be of kinds most dependable for yearly
crops, for I had no respect for off years; and they must be good enough
in color, shape, and quality to tempt the most fastidious market. I
studied catalogues and talked with pomologists until my mind was nearly
unsettled, and finally decided upon Jonathan, Wealthy, Rome Beauty, and
Northwestern Greening,--all winter apples, and all red but the last. I
was helped in my decision, so far as the Jonathans and Rome Beauties
were concerned, by the discovery that more than half of the old orchard
was composed of these varieties.
There is little question as to the wisdom of planting trees of kinds
known to have done well in your neighborhood. They are just as likely to
do well by you as by your neighbor. If the fruit be to your liking, you
can safely plant, for it is no longer an experiment; some one else has
broken that ground for you.
In casting about for a reliable nurseryman to whom to trust the very
important business of supplying me with young trees, I could not long
keep my attention diverted from Rochester, New York. Perhaps the reason
was that as a child I had frequently ridden over the plank road from
Henrietta to Rochester, and my memory recalled distinctly but three
objects on that road,--the house of Frederick Douglass, Mount Hope
Cemetery, and a nursery of young trees. Everything else was obscure. I
fancy that in fifty years the Douglass house has disappeared, but Mount
Hope Cemetery and the tree nursery seem to mock at time. The soil and
climate near Rochester are especially favorable to the growing of young
trees, and my order went to one of the many reliable firms engaged in
this business. The order was for thirty-four hundred
trees,--twenty-seven hundred for the forty-acre orchard and seven
hundred for the ten acres farthest to the south on the home lot. Polly
had consented to this invasion of her domain, for reasons. She said:--
"It is a long way off, rather flat and uninteresting, and I do not see
exactly how to treat it. Apple trees are pretty at most times, and
picturesque when old. You can put them there, if you will seed the
ground and treat it as part of the lawn. I hate your old straight rows,
but I suppose you must have them."
"Yes, I guess I shall have to have straight rows, but I will agree to
the lawn plan after the third year. You must give me a chance to
cultivate the land for three years."
Your tree-man must be absolutely reliable. You have to trust him much
and long. Not only do you depend upon him to send you good and healthy
stock, but you must trust, for five years at least, that this stock will
prove true to name. The most discouraging thing which can befall a
horticulturist is to find his new fruit false to purchase labels. After
wait, worry, and work he finds that he has not what he expected, and
that he must begin over again. It is cold comfort for the tree-man to
make good his guarantee to replace all stock found untrue, for five
years of irreplaceable time has passed. When you have spent time, hope,
and expectation as well as money, looking for results which do not come,
your disappointment is out of all proportion to your financial loss, be
that never so great. In the best-managed nurseries there will be
mistakes, but the better the management the fewer the mistakes. Pay good
prices for young trees, and demand the best. There is no economy in
cheap stock, and the sooner the farmer or fruit-grower comprehends this
fact, the better it will be for him. I ordered trees of three years'
growth from the bud,--this would mean four-year-old roots. Perhaps it
would have been as well to buy smaller ones (many wise people have told
me so), but I was in such a hurry! I wanted to pick apples from these
trees at the first possible moment. I argued that a sturdy
three-year-old would have an advantage over its neighbor that was only
two. However small this advantage, I wanted it in my business--my
business being to make a profitable farm in quick time. The ten acres of
the home lot were to be planted with three hundred Yellow Transparent,
three hundred Duchess of Oldenburg, and one hundred mixed varieties for
home use. I selected the Transparent and the Duchess on account of their
disposition to bear early, and because they are good sellers in a near
market, and because a fruit-wise friend was making money from an
eight-year-old orchard of three thousand of these trees, and advised me
not to neglect them.
My order called for thirty-four hundred three-year-old apple trees of
the highest grade, to be delivered in good condition on the platform at
Exeter for the lump sum of $550. The agreement had been made in August,
and the trees were to be delivered as near the 20th of October as
practicable. Apple trees comprised my entire planting for the autumn of
1895. I wanted to do much other work in that line, but it had to be left
for a more convenient season. Hundreds of fruit trees, shade trees, and
shrubs have since been planted at Four Oaks, but this first setting of
thirty-four hundred apple trees was the most important as well as the
most urgent.
The orchard was to be a prominent feature in the factory I was building,
and as it would be slower in coming to perfection than any other part,
it was wise to start it betimes. I have kicked myself black and blue for
neglecting to plant an orchard ten years earlier. If I had done this,
and had spent two hours a month in the management of it, it would now be
a thing of beauty and an income-producing joy forever,--or, at least, as
long as my great-grandchildren will need it.
There is no danger of overdoing orcharding. The demand for fruit
increases faster than the supply, and it is only poor quality or bad
handling that causes a slack market. If the general farmer will become
an expert orchardist, he will find that year by year his ten acres of
fruit will give him a larger profit than any forty acres of grain land;
but to get this result he must be faithful to his trees. Much of the
time they are caring for themselves, and for the owner, too; but there
are times when they require sharp attention, and if they do not get it
promptly and in the right way, they and the owner will suffer. Fruit
growing as a sole occupation requires favorable soil, climate, and
market, and also a considerable degree of aptitude on the part of the
manager, to make it highly profitable. A fruit-grower in our climate
must have other interests if he would make the most of his time. While
waiting for his fruit he can raise food for hens and hogs; and if he
feeds hens and hogs, he should keep as many cows as he can. He will then
use in his own factory all the raw material he can raise. This will
again be returned to the land as a by-product, which will not only
maintain the fertility of the farm, but even increase it. If his cows
are of the best, they will yield butter enough to pay for their food and
to give a profit; the skim milk, fed to the hogs and hens, will give
eggs and pork out of all proportion to its cost; and everything that
grows upon his land can thus be turned off as a finished product for a
liberal price, and yet the land will not be depleted. The orchard is
better for the hens and hogs and cows, and they are better for the
orchard. These industries fit into each other like the folding of hands;
they seem mutually dependent, and yet they are often divorced, or, at
best, only loosely related. This view may seem to be the result of _post
hoc_ reasoning, but I think it is not. I believe I imbibed these notions
with my mother's milk, for I can remember no time when they were not
mine. The psalmist said, "Comfort me with apples"; and the psalmist was
reputed a wise man. With only sufficient wisdom to plant an orchard, I
live in high expectation of finding the same comfort in my old age.