THE YOUNG ORCHARD
One of the most enjoyable occupations of a farmer's life is the care of young trees. Until your experience in this work is of a personal and proprietary nature, you will not realize the pleasure it can afford. The intimate study of plant life, especially if that plant life is yours, is a never failing source of pleasurable speculation, and a thing upon which to hang dreams. You grow to know each tree, not only by its shape and its habit of growth, but also by peculiarities that belong to it as an individual. The erect, sturdy bearing of one bespeaks a frank, bold nature, which makes it willing to accept its surroundings and make the most of them; while the crooked, dwarfish nature of another requires the utmost care of the husbandman to keep it within the bounds of good behavior. And yet we often find that the slow-growing, ill-conditioned young tree, if properly cared for, will bring forth the finest fruit at maturity.
To study the character and to watch the development of young trees is a pleasing and useful occupation for the man who thinks of them as living things with an inheritance that cannot be ignored. That seeds in all appearance exactly alike should send forth shoots so unlike, is a wonder of Nature; and that young shoots in the same soil and with the same care should show such dissimilarity in development, is a riddle whose answer is to be found only in the binding laws of heredity. That a tiny bud inserted under the bark of a well-grown tree can change a sour root to a sweet bough, ought to make one careful of the buds which one grafts on the living trunk of one's tree of life. The young orchard can teach many lessons to him who is willing to be taught; in the hands of him who is not, the schoolmaster has a very sorry time of it, no matter how he sets his lessons.
The side pockets of my jacket are usually weighted down with pruning-shears, a sharp knife, and a handled copper wire,—always, indeed, in June, when I walk in my orchard. June is the month of all months for the prudent orchardist to go thus armed, for the apple-tree borer is abroad in the land. When the quick eye of the master sees a little pile of sawdust at the base of a tree, he knows that it is time for him to sit right down by that tree and kill its enemy. The sharp knife enlarges the hole, which is the trail of the serpent, and the sharp-pointed, flexible wire follows the route until it has reached and transfixed the borer.
This is the only way. It is the nature of the borer to maim or kill the tree; it is for the interest of the owner that the tree should live. The conflict is irrepressible, and the weakest must go to the wall. The borer evil can be reduced to a minimum by keeping the young trees banked three or four inches high with firm dirt or ashes; but borers must be followed with the wire, once they enter the bark.
The sharp knife and the pruning-shears have other uses in the June orchard. Limbs and sprouts will come in irregular and improper places, and they should be nipped out early and thus save labor and mutilation later on. Sprouts that start from the eyes on the trunk can be removed by a downward stroke of the gloved hand. All intersecting or crossing boughs are removed by knife or scissors, and branches which are too luxuriant in growth are cut or pinched back. Careful guidance of the tree in June will avoid the necessity of severe correction later on.
A man ought to plant an orchard, if for no other reason, that he may have the pleasure of caring for it, and for the companionship of the trees. This was the second year of growth for my orchard, and I was gratified by the evidences of thrift and vigor. Fine, spreading heads adorned the tops of the stubs of trees that had received such (apparently) cruel treatment eighteen months before. The growth of these two seasons convinced me that the four-year-old root and the three-year-old stem, if properly managed, have greater possibilities of rapid development than roots or stems of more tender age. I think I made no mistake in planting three-year-old trees.
As I worked in my orchard I could not help looking forward to the time when the trees would return a hundred-fold for the care bestowed upon them. They would begin to bring returns, in a small way, from the fourth year, and after that the returns would increase rapidly. It is safe to predict that from the tenth to the fortieth year a well-managed orchard will give an average yearly income of $100 an acre above all expenses, including interest on the original cost. A fifty-acre orchard of well-selected apple trees, near a first-class market and in intelligent hands, means a net income of $5000, taking one year with another, for thirty or forty years. What kind of investment will pay better? What sort of business will give larger returns in health and pleasure?
I do not mean to convey the idea that forty years is the life of an orchard; hundreds of years would be more correct. As trees die from accident or decrepitude, others should take their places. Thus the lease of life becomes perpetual in hands that are willing to keep adding to the soil more than the trees and the fruit take from it. Comparatively few owners of orchards do this, and those who belong to the majority will find fault with my figures; but the thinking few, who do not expect to enjoy the fat of the land without making a reasonable return, will say that I am too conservative,—that a well-placed, well-cared-for, well-selected, and well-marketed orchard will do much better than my prophecy. Nature is a good husbandman so far as she goes, but her scheme contemplates only the perpetuation of the tree, by seeds or by other means. Nature's plan is to give to each specimen a nutritive ration. Anything beyond this is thrown away on the individual, and had better be used for the multiplying of specimens. When man comes to ask something more than germinating seeds from a plant, he must remove it from the crowded clump, give it more light and air, and feed it for product. In other words, he must give it more nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash than it can use for simple growth and maintenance, and thus make it burst forth into flower-or fruit-product. Nature produces the apple tree, but man must cultivate it and feed it if he would be fed and comforted by it. People who neglect their orchards can get neither pleasure nor profit from them, and such persons are not competent to sit in judgment upon the value of an apple tree. Only those who love, nourish, and profit by their orchards may come into the apple court and speak with authority.