tThursday, November 25,
2
Professor Ma.ooey'o
Editorial Page.
The Apple Region of North Carolina
7S7
HAVE JUST RETURNED from a trip in
the mountains of western North Carolina
-where they wanted me to hold an institute
all alone. The locality was the little hamlet of
Cruso away up the valley of Pigeon River before
Mount Pisgah. I have mentioned elsewhere the
apples of this section, and at the State Fair in
Raleigh, there was a wonderful display of these
mountain apples.
There are a few growers who are caring for
their orchards in an intelligent way, but most
of the fine apples are grown by reason of the soil
and climate and In spite of neglect. But I saw
them hauling down Ben Davis apples and getting
$2.25 per barrel for them at the railroad station.
I also saw there specimens of Gillyflower apples
so superior to those we see in barrels from the
North that one could hardly identify the monsters
except by the Gillyflower shape. As this apple al
ways sells at a high price, I wondered that they
did not grow more of them instead of Ben Davis.
Not that I consider the Gillyflower a superior ap
ple, for I do not care for them, as I like a brittle,
juicy apple; but it Is a popular apple with many
people, and always sells for a better price than
Ben Davis.
A friend sent me a box of York Imperials from
the mountain country, and finer specimens cannot
be found anywhere, as big and showy as the same
variety from the Pacific Coast, and far better in
quality
At Cruso I was surprised at the gathering of
the people, some of whom came from nearly
twenty miles away, and one man drove all night
to get there in time. The meeting was to have
been held in the schoolhouse, and I wondered
where there would be people enough to fill it in
that wild mountain gorge. But by the time I
reached the house there were already twice as
many as the house would hold, and we had to
hold the meeting out under the trees with the
gloriously colored mountains for a background.
I am fond of talking to farmers- but that day
was almost . too much for me, as I had to talk
morning and afternoon till my throat was in a
bad state, and then some followed me to my
stopping place and asked questions till bed-time,
when I had to go to bed with a mustard plaster
on my throat. I tried to show them the wonder
ful adaptation of that section to the apple crop,
and talked on apples mainly all the morning, urg
ing the planting of yearling trees and then mak
ing low-headed trees that are easy to spray and
easy to gather apples from. I never had a more
attentive audience, nor one that entered into the
spirit of asking questions better.
There is no section in the United States that
can grow better apples than the Southern Ap
palachians from Virginia-to Alabama, and when
the people are fully waked up to the great ad
vantages they have for growing rich apples, this
wil? be a show place for apples as it is now the
pleasure ground of the people.
But I wondered that so many people who visit
these mountains in summer leave so soon. They
do not see the glory of the mountains in Octo
ber. No painter's brush could transfer to canvas
the wonderful color of the wooded mountains. It
is absolutely indescribable, and was a feast to the
eye.'- . ;
My host was a Michigan man who with his wife
is fond of the wild woods, trout fishing and hunt
ing, and has built him a pretty cottage at the foot
of the mountain in a bank of rhododendrons, with
the music of the cataracts in the river In front
to lull them to sleep. The only bit of level land
he has is a small garden arid a few fruit trees,
and the great difficulty with these is that the
sun peeps In on him after 8 o'clock and the
shadow of the opposite mountain falls on him
about 3 p. m., and he has less sunlight than need
ed. '"Laurel Bank" Is the name set In .nickle
letters over the porch, and he said: "You would
hardly believe that In this forest country I got
most of the woodwork of this house from Chicago
cheaper than I could get It here."
At Canton, fourteen miles down the valley on
the railroad, I visited the great paper puId works.
where they are working 900 men and are grind
ing up 300 cords of wood daily for paper pulp,
ana making brown cardboard from the bark and
waste. Men were working in a temperature of
100 degrees shoveling sulphur into great reioris
in an atmosphere that I could hardly breathe,
making the sulphurous acid for the solution of
the wood. And at the other end of the immense
buildings the pulp, dried and made into great
white rolls like thick paper, was being loaded on
the cars to go to the . paper mills in Ohio. And in
this town which twenty years ago I knew as a
little village, they are paving the streets with
bitulithic, and a city is growing up, and a home
market for all the vegetables the surrounding
country can make. And yet, I was told that the
farmers up the valley of the Pigeon buy feed and
bacon! I tried to tell them how to avoid this
not only with apples, but with good farming, of
the bottom patches, and one man who farms 100
acres, and has been buying feed, followed me at
night to learn how to build a silo. I must have
hit him, and I hope I helped him, ana otners, 100.
Making a Country Schoolhouse
Beautiful.
ETTING A SCHOOLHOUSE in a dense
woods is worse than having one in an
open field without trees, for the health of
the pupils is promoted by having the sunshine on
the house at times. But a house standing on a
bare lotwithout even grass around It, and often
an unpainted, barn-like structure is simply hid
eous. But where there is some attempt at plant
ing it is generally in the nature of makin? a
grove over the whole lot, and this, too, is wrong,
for it prevents the growth of grass or the plant
ing of flower-beds and shrubbery.
Trees of large size should be used mainly on
the outskirts to frame in a picture of a pretty
lawn and some flower-beds. Make a wide border
around the building and plant it with a variety
of flowering shrubbery that will bloom at differ
ent times in the season. Have a walk curving
from one side of the lot past the door and out at
the other side so that there can be a broad scope
of grass in the center. Around the outskirts
plant a variety of trees and give them room to
take their natural forms, making with them a
broad, Irregular border to the lot, and not plant
ing them in straight rows like an ochard. Make
these trees largely evergreen, for the school is
held mainly in winter, but still have some de
ciduous ones for their spring beauty. Then do
not trim up the coniferous evergreens or the
magnolias with an ugly stem, but let them branch
from the ground in natural form.
Keep the playground in the rear and screen
out the rear buildings of convenience with lat
tice and vines. On the outer edges of the shrub
bery border around the house, which screens the
base of the building, you can have fall-planted
bulbs, such as hyacinths and tulips and narcissus,
and follow these in summer with annual plants
that the pupils are taught to raise from seed in
boxes and outside. Once get the children inter
ested in making the front of the lot beautiful
and they will not damage it. Lawn mowers are
very cheap now, and the lawn should be regular
ly mown and the grass annually top-dressed with
fertilizer to promote the growth of the grass.
Now Is the time for planting the deciduous
trees and shrubbery, but spring will be better for
the evergreens. There are many trees and shrubs
native to the different sections that can be used
effectively. Too many people look always for
"far-fetched" things. Some laughed at me years
ago for planting sweet-gum trees at the North
Carolina A. & M. College, but there are few pret
tier trees than these are now, and splendid in
their fall colors. Our native maples and elms
are also good and the oaks should not be neg
lected. v
Then, where the long-leaf pine grows go Into
the woods and with a sharp spade cut under the
young trees a foot or so high to cut the tap root.
Then let them stand another season, and they
can be moved after they have made more lateral
roots. Little cedars a foot high transplant easily,
as do also the little cypress trees from the
swamps, and they make finer trees on the dry
ground than in the swamps. Hollies can be
easily moved in spring if all the leaves are pulled
off, but will certainly fail if you do not remove
the leaves. Magnolias also should have the leaves
taken off so that the roots can get a start before
the leaves evaporate the moisture too much.
Then in shrubbery we have many pretty things
to add to the splreas, etc., so commonly grown.
The wax myrtle of the wood is a pretty ever
green; the common gall berry is also attractive;
xn f iib'uiva uiunta i ttLCUlCS Ui- U 6 3. U L 1 1 , .
flowers in spring, and is easily found alone th
branches. The staminate form of the frne t
is also very beautiful in bloom. SourwJodmak66
a, pretty shrub or small tree and has 'prut.y a GS
ers and gorgeous color in the fall, ilex erticiit"
ta, the deciduous member of the holly family
be found in the swamps and is very gay ir win?1
with its red berries. In fact, any teacher
a lover of plants and knows the native Phi ubbe1S
can get the boys interested in getting tfiese thin"7
from the forest, and they will learn to admire
beauty even in common things. There is such
wealth of trees and shrubs in the South tii any
one can adorn his grounds and make thvn very
attractive by getting the wild plants alone; and
getting these and learning their names and habits
will be an education to the boys and girls.
Right and Wrong Ways of Milking
ILKING THE COWS is regarded on most
Southern farms as disagreeable work.
When the calf is allowed to take its feed
from its mother's udder at milking time, as is
common on the farms of this section, milking is
indeed a disagreeable task. On the other hand,
when the calf is removed from the cow after suck
ing once or twice and the cow is taught to stand
quietly without feed to be milked, the task Is
neither hard nor unpleasant.
A milk cow is kept for the milkshe gives, and
if careless milking reduces the quantity of milk
one-fourth, then the feed consumed by the cow
jixij uixufeo luicc-uuuua aa x uiix aa 1 1 SllUUiQ.
In twelve dairy herds tested by the Wisconsin
Experiment Station good milking gave a daily in
crease per cow of 1.08 pounds of milk and .1
pound of butter fat. In several cases it was
found that some particular milker in a dairy herd
did his work sufficiently better than other milk
ers to be worth $10 a month more to the owner
of the herd. In Denmark the question of proper
milking is regarded of sufficient importance to
make it worth while for the Government to make
a special appropriation for the teaching of cor
rect milking to men and women of all ages.
To secure good milking of the dairy herd, weigh
the milk of each cow and keep a record of it;
give the milkers proper instruction and offer a
premium for the best results and attach a pen
alty to unsatisfactory results.
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ir the good acres did not have to pay for so rau;
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