USA > Kansas > Sedgwick County > History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas, past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county, Vol. II > Part 19
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Now, with Wichita expanding, with her packing houses, manu- facturing, her railroads, with machine shops and roundhouses,
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and her big wholesale center, it will be but a few years until the city is built out to our twenty acres, which is known far and wide as "Yaw's Fruit Farm," because of a big sign we have on our barn next to the Rock Island Railroad.
Here are some of the varieties of fruit which I have suc- cessfully grown on my place in Sedgwick county :
Cherries-Dyhouse, Black, Tataran, Royal Dukes.
Apples-Ben Davis, Jonathan, Missouri Pippin, Maiden Blush, Yellow Transparent, Lowell, York Imperial, Rambo, Missing Link, and others.
Peaches-Salway, Early Amsden, Alberta, Wonderful, Early June, Chinese Red Cling and ordinary Clingstone.
Plums-Burbank, Wild Goose, Damson, and the ordinary wild plum.
IRRIGATING SMALL FRUITS WILL PAY.
Although my experience has been principally with blackber- ries and strawberries, I am convinced that what will do for blackberries will do equally well for other bush fruits. Straw- berries, however, are in a class by themselves; so, too, are vege- tables. With vegetables we can irrigate and get results in a few days, but not so with fruit; for that you must begin the year before. We must first learn the nature of the plant that we have to deal with. My first trial on blackberries was last fall. Owing to the delay in putting in a pump we did not get the water on until October. For best results it should have been done in August; as it was, it tided the plant along with vitality, but it was too late to make cane growth. One must have cane growth to get fruit. Let us stop and learn the nature of the blackberry. The cane never fruits but once, then dies after the fruit is off. A new cane starts early in the spring to take the place of the old one, to bear fruit the following year. This year I turned the water on in July to keep that cane growing that it may be fully developed for the next crop that is to come next year. I am well ' satisfied with results, as the canes started a new growth in a few days after the irrigation was commenced and they were kept growing until the rain came. Another time when they must have water is when the fruit is ripening. This is the most critical time of all. The plant must have an abundance of moisture during the fruiting season or the berries will be undeveloped, and near the last will dry up and become worthless. One may have a
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good crop in a year of severe drouth, but the following year is when he will fall short, no matter how much rain he gets during the season. We hear men ask: "What is wrong with my black- berries this year? There is no fruit to speak of. Did I prune them at the wrong time? Did I work them out at the wrong time?" The pruning and working had nothing to do with the failure this year. These persons are looking for the cause this year when they should look back to last year for the cause. We have had two years of severe drouth in succession. The canes are in a very weak condition. They showed that when the new canes came out in the spring. They will be worse next year. Many of the plants will die outright. It will take them two years to recover, no matter what the conditions may be during the next two years. You may expect only light crops. I mean on all old plantings. The handwriting is on the wall, so don't ask questions next season as to the cause of the failure. Of the new plantings set last spring and this, they are simply fine. They have made a good growth, and are in good condition. I don't see how they done as well as they have.
With strawberries we have a somewhat different proposition to face. It makes its fruit buds the fall before, unlike the bush fruit which makes buds in the spring. It puts forth its fruit stems with its first leaves. It is but a few days later when we have the luscious red strawberry, the first fruit of the season, and oh how anxious we all are to see them. It is with the grower himself to say, to a great extent, what that fruit stem shall be. He must see to it that the plant is making a strong, vigorous growth in August and September, the year before fruiting. It is then you can make strong fruit stems and many of them. It is too late to do it in October and November when it is getting cold. If the natural conditions are not right one must make them right by preparing to irrigate in time so the plants may have an abundance of water at ripening time. It is then when you can eliminate the small berries and make them all large. We all know what a change it makes in small fruit when we get a good deal of rain during the picking season. Nothing is more sensitive to even a light rain than the strawberry. It is at that time we must see to it that they get water in liberal supplies, as the berry is nearly all water. You can see what a strain it is on the plant to make large berries of all its fruit when the ground is dry. The reason we have so many small berries on
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the market is that there is a lack of water in the fruiting season. I irrigated my strawberries in July this year. Now I am getting strong, vigorous plants. I may have to irrigate again later to keep them going. In irrigation there should be no "off years" in small fruit culture. Unless it is a large crop and that followed by a light one, there should be no light crops. It is not every year that irrigation is required here to grow the plants or even in the fruiting season, but that one should be prepared to do so if need be goes without saying. I quit the strawberry business last year for good, but since putting in a pump I am planting again.
Mr. Frank Robbins has been irrigating strawberries three or four years and he has made a success of it from the start. As far as I know he is the pioneer in the irrigation of strawberries in this section. I commenced with no knowledge of how it should be done; only a theory. Can I win? Well, that remains to be seen. It is often the case that when small fruit is ripening we have a dry, warm time. It is not only true of central Kansas, but it is true of all the central West, and it becomes a trying time for the grower. In the strawberry belt of Missouri the writer has often heard men say: "If we don't have rain in three or four days I'm ruined." That was when all they had depended on a strawberry crop. It is only too true that the dealers and consumers know but little about the trials of the grower, but I know of no locality between here and the Atlantic where one can overcome this lack so well as in this valley. Do the people in the Arkansas valley know the possibilities in store for them in the silent underflow? The writer believes that the cheapest water to be found in the West for irrigating purposes is in this valley. With the continual advance in land values it is a ques- tion of time, and but a short time only, when the small fruit grower must go out of business or turn his attention to irriga- tion .- Thomas McNallie, in "The Beacon."
HOW TO IMPROVE APPLE ORCHARDS. By E. G. HOOVER.
Judging from the subject assigned me the editor of "The Beacon" must have been spending his spare time riding through the farming districts of this vicinity. If so, it requires no great
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mental effort to ascertain the why and wherefore of the assign- ment. If any section that can grow fine fruit, combining both quality and quantity, stands in need of improvement in its orchard methods this section is the one. It requires no great knowledge of the science of orcharding to understand why this county does not take its proper rank in fruit growing, especially in the grow- ing of apples. Here are several of the causes of the failure : Lack of study, application, cultivation, pruning, spraying, poor location as to soils, poor nursery stock and too many varieties. These causes all may be laid to one great lack or necessity of practical fruit growers. By lack of study is meant a lack of knowledge of the tree, its insect and fungus enemies, soil con- ditions, etc. By lack of application is meant that those who make a specialty of growing fruit are too few. The majority do not confine themselves to fruit growing, but are in fact better termed general farmers, who grow all kinds of crops, and if greater neglect is given one thing over another the apple orchard is usually the one that receives it. Pruning is the bath of the tree. Neglect of this important essential to apple culture bears the same relative value to the tree as neglect of the bath to the human body. A jaunt through the country will readily convince the skeptical as to the truth of this assertion. You will see many, and in fact, nearly all, orchards overloaded with brush and water sprout so thick as to exclude the sun's rays and even the free circulation of the air-prime necessities to the growing of fruit, the quality of which is to go on the table of the modern epicure. Cultivation follows hand in hand with pruning and it is the crash towel that produces the glow and exhilaration of the properly grown apple. Cultivation is absolutely necessary, and it should commence early in the spring and be followed up consistently until July 10. Later cultivation than this is not good, as it causes too late a growth of the trees and an uneven coloring of the fruit. Also, bare ground causes a reflection from the sun that is antagonistic to high color-therefore injurious to the quality.
Spraying is the family physician. A call from him at the right time and a use of the right "dope" is the insurance of the apple crop. Modern management of an apple orchard con- siders the spraying machine a most desirable aid to high class fruit culture. The use of the spraying machine and materials requires a knowledge of the insects and fungi that prey upon the
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tree and fruit. A small gasoline spraying plant is not costly and it is the most economical in the end, as only by constant, steady pressure can the proper distribution of the solution be made and a thorough job be done. About the greatest mistake that has been made in fruit growing in this section is the large number of varieties that are to be found in almost every orchard. Varieties that are not suitable for this climate are most prevalent. About nine out of ten varieties that were planted here in the past did well in the East, where most of the settlers came from and the varieties that they were familiar with back there were the ones planted here in addition to new beauties of the illustrated cata- logue of the canvasser. In my judgment there are three varieties of summer apples that pay, two varieties of fall apples, and three or four varieties of winter apples. I doubt if there are any two men in this section who would agree with me as to the varieties I have in mind for a very successful commercial orchard. As to what, in my judgment, would be the proper course to pursue in the improvement of the orchards of this section, I would say that a tree puller and the grubbing hoe would be very proper instruments in the improvement of a great many orchards. Prac- tical fruit growers who understand the business is the prime requisite-men who love trees and all that pertains to them. These men and the right varieties and right soils for the varieties, with pruning, cultivation, spraying and the unsparing use of common sense.
FRUIT AND TRUCK FARMING WILL PAY.
By MARCELLUS PIATT.
The vast areas of government land once accessible to the man wanting a farm has now been exhausted. The result is that smaller tracts of land must be made to yield a living to young men building new families. The large centers of population that are engaged in mining, manufacturing, merchandising, etc., must be fed. The great increase in population by immigration and by birth into this country makes it imperative that intensive farm- ing be resorted to, that all may be fed and clothed and housed. Fruit farming, truck farming, or these combined with dairying, poultry, bees, etc., goes largely to solve the great problem of
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furnishing employment and good homes to the millions of our people. Mr. Arthur J. Bill reports to the Illinois Farmers' Insti- tute the success of a woman, Mrs. Leona Huddleston, near Spring- field, in the matter of intensive farming. This woman has shrewd business tact. Great, strong men with a little business gumption ought to do equally as well.
Mrs. Huddleston bought forty acres of rough, hilly land four years ago for $7,000, with only $2,500 to pay down. She has since sold the coal right for $1,000 and has refused $10,500 for the place. She began on this land without experience and without help. She began work in the fields and developed a dairy, fruit, vegetable and poultry business. She drives the delivery wagon herself to private customers in Springfield. She keeps a hired man during the rush of the season and extra help in berry pick- ing and harvest times. Two hundred apple trees, many peach and cherry trees, five acres of blackberries and small fruits, including strawberries, were set. She milks eight cows. One of these has made as high as seventeen pounds of butter per week, and has raised twin calves three years in succession. She has refused $165 for the cow. The morning milk is sold in the town, most of it bottled, at 71/2 cents per quart. The night's milk is separated and made into butter. About fifty pounds a week is sold at 35 cents a pound, the year around. The fruit and truck business combines well with the milk delivery. Orders are taken for truck while delivering milk and these delivered next morning. Five hundred chickens were raised this year, many sold before July, the first at 50 cents each. Less than one-sixth of an acre of asparagus yielded $57. Less than one-tenth of an acre of ground returned $100 worth of cucumbers last year. Fruit vari- eties of special value are bought or developed and bees are to be added. Clover, oats, corn and such field crops are also raised. No waste, all is utilized. She says "the road to success is to work for yourself and not for somebody else. There is an open- ing here for a large number of people to engage in the fruit business or fruit, truck, etc., combined. There is no better place for it than the Arkansas valley, and right here at Wichita. The worst trouble is the undertaking of too much. Ten to twenty acres of an apple orchard is enough for one man. Cultivating, pruning, spraying, harvesting and marketing his products will require every moment of his time, but he can have the satisfaction of knowing that he has done it well and that is worth a great
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deal. I like specialties. Raise onion sets. Our Mr. Wilson out on the Arkansas river raises onion sets and disposes of all he can raise readily at a good figure. His income from a few acres is $1,500 to $2,000 per annum; enough to support a large family. Onions alone is a good truck crop. This crop will net the raiser about $500 an acre. Tomatoes are always in demand at good figures. Potatoes is another good crop. Among the fruit crops, apples are important, and many men in this vicinity are mak- ing a success of apple growing. It is true that difficulties are in the way, but men no longer grope in the dark, for the past few years has brought us over the experimental era to that of the scientific. There is not enough suitable orchard land in the United States to produce apples for the whole country, and there is only a small per cent of the apple land utilized, so that we need never fear an overproduction of apples for this country. Walter Wellhouse, secretary of the Kansas State Horticultural Society, says that the world's supply falls several million bushels short each year, and that there never was a better time to engage in commercial apple growing. Peaches, pears and all the berry fruits thrive well in this valley and yield good returns with intelligent culture .- From "New Home Edition."
GRAPE CULTURE IN SOUTHERN KANSAS.
By G. W. COLLINGS.
Among all the fruits the grape is one of the most important. Indeed it is the most important with the solitary exception of the apple, and it has probably had more to do in shaping the world's history than all other fruits combined. It is the one fruit that seems to have been cultivated and in use long before any other. "Long before research folded back the curtains of time; long before the breath of history crystallized incidents and events, the 'amethyst clusters' of the grape ripened under sunny skies. Veiled in myth, clothed in the shades of the past, gleaming from legend and fable, it comes to us breathing suggestions of sylvan deities. Greek festivals and Egyptian rites." The cultivation of the grape must have long preceded the knowledge of wine making, and it will be recalled that the making of wine antedates the time of Noah. The cultivation of the grape must have reached
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a high degree of perfection at the time the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, since it required two of the spies that Moses sent to search the land of Canaan to bear back a single bunch of grapes that they found growing in that country. In the fact that this particular variety has not been preserved horticulture has sustained an incalculable loss. In the time of Christ grape culture was practiced to such an extent that at least some of the people seem to consider it "bad form" to have a wedding without wine. You will recall the embarrassment that was caused by the want of wine at the marriage in Cana of Gali- lee, when Jesus and his disciples wanted wine and there was none, and how Jesus relieved the embarrassment by making six flagons of wine on the spot.
"The water saw its Lord, And blushing turned to wine."
And now the ease with which grapes can be grown, the excel- lence of the fruit, and its many uses, would indicate that every- one who has a few square yards of ground, and who does not grow a supply of grapes for home use, is failing to embrace one of his best opportunities. The grape will succeed over a larger extent of territory than any other fruit, unless it may be the strawberry. All varieties of grapes do not succeed in any one locality, but there are so many varieties that among them may be found a few that will succeed almost anywhere. The growing of grapes does not require more skill than the growing of corn or potatoes, and does not require more work. The right varieties succeed admirably in Kansas and particularly in this valley. Grapes, like other fruits, are not grown from the seed, except for the purpose of originating new varieties. The plants are pro- duced in three ways: By layers, by cutting and by single eyes. The latter method is not often used. If only a few plants are required they can best be made by layers. This is done by cover- ing a cane with earth without detaching it from the parent plant. In the spring before the growth starts make a little trench three or four inches deep and in the bottom of this lay a cane and secure it with two or three stalks with hooks attached. After the shoots that will spring up at each joint of this cane are grown six or eight inches cover the cane with earth and the job is done. Roots will be formed at each joint and in the fall the
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plants can be taken up and cut apart, each shoot making a sepa- rate plant. Where plants are wanted in quantities they are usually made from cuttings. This is a simple operation. Make the cutting in the winter, or at least while the vines are dormant. They are to be made from the growth of the preceding year. Cut them with three or four joints to the cutting, usually fifteen or sixteen inches in length. Cut the best end off square and within about a half inch of the joint. They may be buried out of doors or in a box of damp sand in the cellar. When vegetation begins to grow nicely in the spring, say about corn planting time, they should be planted out. Before planting the ground should be put in good tilth. Then plow a deep furrow, and in this place the cuttings. Lean them at an angle against one side of the furrow and set them deep enough so that one joint will be near but just about the top of the ground when it is leveled down. The matter of having the one joint above ground is important, as if it is all covered the plant will not start. Pack the dirt firmly around the cutting and particularly at the bottom of them, and keep them well cultivated during the summer. If all the details of this process are carefully attended to a very large per cent of the cuttings ought to grow and make plants.
Most people who want grape vines will want to buy the plants already started. In this case it is advisable to get two-year-old plants. The difference in cost is trifling, and one year is gained in the time for their coming into bearing. The bad feature about buying the plants is that labels of a great many nursery- men mean nothing. Use your best endeavor to buy from a reli- able nurseryman. If a judicious choice of varieties is made, one can have ripe grapes every day from about the first of August until the foliage is killed by frost. If a number of plants are to be set, the best way is to plow a deep furrow to set them in. Make the rows eight feet apart and a good average distance for the plants in the row is eight feet, although some of the rank growing varieties would do better to have more room and some of the weaker growing varieties do not require so much. After the plants are set, rub off all the buds but one, and during the first year tie this shoot to a temporary stake. Before the growth starts the following spring the permanent trellis should be put up. The common way of making the trellis is to set posts in the line of the plants; and if the plants are set eight feet apart then the posts should be sixteen feet apart, thus allowing two
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plants between each two posts. Great care should be taken to have every plant exactly in line, as well as to have every post in line with the plants. This will avoid trouble in cultivating the vineyard.
To the posts two vines should be attached, some vineyardists use only one wire, but two is very much better. A good wire to use is a No. 12 galvanized. These wires may be fastened to the posts with staples, but a better way is to make a hole through the post and pass the wire through, as staples will often come out and let the wire down when it is loaded with the foliage and fruit of the vine and when it is exceedingly hard to get it back to its place. With the wire through the post this cannot happen. The grape will respond to good cultivation and fer- tilizing as well as corn or any other crop. In cultivating a vine- yard, the cultivator should not go very deep, as many of the roots of the plant are near the surface.
Most of the enemies of the grape, both insect pests and vari- ous diseases, may be quite successfully controlled by spraying.
As to varieties. Among the black grapes Moore's Early and Campbell's Early will be the first to ripen. Early Ohio and Champion will ripen equally as early, but the quality is so poor that they cannot be recommended. Then will come the Worden and the Concord. The Concord is probably the most general purpose grape of them all. Then will come Cynthiana, once very popular on this market, but now not so popular as formerly. Among the red grapes there is the Brighton, ripening soon after Moore's Early-a good yielder if fertilized with some other variety, and a grape of excellent quality. The Salem is a large red grape with a peculiar aromatic flavor that is very pleasant, but with me it has not been healthy either in plant or fruit. The Goethe is a light pink colored grape, very large and very late, and to my taste the best of all the grapes, but it is subject to so many diseases that it is not a profitable grape to grow commercially. Among the white grapes Moore's Diamond and the Niagara are the best for this locality. The Green Mountain is a better flavored grape, but the berries are small, and as most buyers are governed by the size more than quality it is a poor seller. It should always be included in a collection intended for home use. The pruning of the grape vine is the most difficult thing to learn about grape culture, but the limit of this article does not permit me to discuss it.
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SEDGWICK HAS AN ENTOMOLOGY STATION.
One of the newest and most important state institutions located in Wichita is a branch of the state department of ento- mology. The office was opened here about the first of last June and has been remarkably busy during the entire summer and fall assisting the farmers of the county in getting rid of their orchard pests. Prof. S. J. Hunter, of Kansas University, is at the head of the state department, and the Wichita branch, which is the most important branch in the state, is in charge of Mr. C. B. Twigg, who is giving his entire time and energy to the work in this part of the state. Mr. Twigg is a man of extensive training and experience in the field of entomology and his work is being recognized as a work of vast importance to the farmers and fruit raisers in Sedgwick and adjoining counties. One of the prin- cipal duties of this department is to advise and assist farmers in ridding their orchards and fields of the troublesome pests. There have been times when the farmers and fruit raisers in Kansas have suffered heavy losses because of plant destroyers which have flourished in the fields where crops were being produced. Scien- tific investigations have demonstrated that these pests can be eliminated and that the crops they destroy from year to year can be saved to the farmers of the state if the proper methods are used. Those methods are the things that the department of entomology are prepared to teach. Farmers and fruit raisers are coming to see the importance of this kind of protection and an increasing number of them are adopting the methods which the state department of entomology describes to them. Professor Twigg occupies five days each week in actual field work, and each Saturday he keeps an open office in the rooms of the horticul- tural society in the Sedgwick county court house to consult with the farmers and fruit raisers who seek his advice and assistance.
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