Mr. Ludlow: Are the rings put on the outside or the inside of the trees?
Mr. Simmons: On the inside, so that the screw eyes all point towards the center of the tree. After three or four years you can't see the screw eye, it grows right into the tree.
Mr. Ludlow: I want to ask if you recommend the bamboo poles for general propping of trees?
Mr. Simmons: Yes, sir; most emphatically I would. It is the best and most economical prop you can use. Of course, it is the general opinion among expert fruit growers that the crop should never be too heavy for the tree. The bamboo prop is the best we found. With reasonable care, bamboo poles will outlast common lumber.
It is the general opinion among expert fruit growers that the tree should carry all fruit possible, but should not be permitted to be loaded so heavy as to need propping.
Mr. Dyer: I have an orchard of 70 acres and it would take a great many bamboo poles to prop that orchard. I use pieces of board, various lengths, 4 inches wide and 1 inch thick, of various lengths. I get them 14 to 16 feet long and sometimes I cut them in two. My trees are large, twenty-five and thirty and thirty-five years old, and that has been my most successful material to prop with.
Mr. Simmons: What is the cost?
Mr. Dyer: Well, you know what the lumber is, I paid about $24.00 a thousand.
Mr. Simmons: When I tried to buy the props from the lumber yard they would have cost me twenty cents each. I bought the twenty foot bamboo poles for $7.00 a hundred and the sixteen foot poles for $4.50 a hundred.
A Member: I didn't get where his orchard is located, and I would like to ask about the variety of apples he had the best success with.