FRUIT-GROWING. Figs. 49S-505.
No branch of American agriculture has shown a mere complete adaptation to modern demands and conditions than fruit-growing; it has become a large-area and real farm enterprise ; the field prac tices have been completely changed within a score of years ; the products have come to be of national importance. Persons now purchase farms for the sole purpose of raising fruit on them ; and on mixed-husbandry farms the orcharding part has taken on a broader and freer spirit, and is not merely an isolated or incidental part of the farm scheme. In other words, fruit-growing has assumed Where one would best engage in fruit-growing is a question difficult to answer. Once the Editor knew ; but after he went away from home he began to doubt, and now he has no opinion. Fruit growing is no longer confined to a few areas here and there. It is practicable in many regions that have been considered to lie outside the "fruit belts." Wherever any fruit has been grown suc cessfully, it can in all probability be grown again. Sometimes a region that has not been exploited for any kind of fruit may afford excellent natural adap tabilities. The choice of a location is usually deter mined by the general region in which one desires to live ; then the intending fruit-grower can make commercial significance, and it must now be con sidered in any fair discussion of farm management.
That this has not always been true, is shown by the literature of fruit-growing. The older books are mostly a reflection of fruit-gardening, dealing with varieties and with small special practices. Within the past few years the writings have had a larger sweep, conceiving of fruit-growing in much the spirit that we conceive of grain-growing or live-stock-raising. The personal fruit-garden, as an amateur adjunct to a home, has been relatively neglected. Just now, however, there is a revival of the amateur interest in fruit-growing, express ing itself as a reaction from the commercial busi nes!, and as a result of the suburban and country home movement. While the practices in these two types of fruit-growing are similar in principle, the types themselves are quite distinct. One is a
broadly agricultural type ; the other is a fancier and connoisseur type.
inquiries as to the parts of the region that are best adapted.
The farm plan.
The farm management phase of fruit-growing has received little careful study. The orchard occu pies the ]and for years. Usually the man who likes to grow fruit does not care much for live-stock, the two businesses require different mental atti tudes. It is a question whether the relative lack of live-stock in fruit-growing communities is not a serious disadvantage, not only in relation to main taining productiveness of the land, but to the developing of general rural activities. It is a ques tion, also, whether labor, teams and implements could not be more economically utilized by some corollary system of simple field-farming. As at present conducted, orcharding is not a self-con tinuing or self-regulating business in the sense that good rotation-farming is ; that is, there is no reg,u lar provision for utilizing the land after the orchard is removed. The grower usually does not lay out a plan of land management, one item in which is the growing of orchards. In the case of apples, the life of the orchard is so great, at least in the east ern states, that the grower feels that he is planting for a lifetime, and he leaves succeeding questions to those who may come after him. Even apple orchards may be retained too long for profit, how ever ; and peaches, plums and some other fruits are not too long-lived to form part of a rotation plan. The rotation farmer may lay out a course that is not expected to mature within twenty years (pages 95, 96). Small-fruits are well adapted to rotation ing. In fact, careful rotation is the very best means of keeping in check certain difficult diseases and pests of strawberries, raspberries and black berries. The rotation may be between different kinds of fruits themselves, or between fruits and field-crop courses. The point is that fruit-growing practice ought not to be completely isolated from general farm management plans.