COMMERCIAL APPLE CULTURE IN MOUNTAIN

REGIONS.

BY W. N. HUTT, HORTICULTURIST.

The apple is the most widely distributed of tree fruits. It is found growing on every continent of the globe. In the United States it grows in every State of the Union, from the subtropic to the north temperate zone. It is found from sea level to mountain top, with every variety of soil and with every grade of humidity and aridity. In this wide range it has almost every environmental change to which a plant could well be subjected. Under all these varying conditions it gives evidence of its likes and its dislikes by the varying degrees of success to which it grows.

Plants, like animals, have their preferences and also their means of showing them. The environmental likes and dislikes of plants are easily seen. When they are at home and comfortable in their surroundings they give evidence of their satisfaction in increased growth and production and in the highest quality of fruit. When they are not comfortable they show a puny growth, scarcity of foliage, susceptibility to the attacks of insects and diseases, lack of fruit and lessened longevity.

It is interesting to note the instinctive desires of the apple tree and what conformity it shows to local conditions. In the low altitudes where the cotton plant is at home the apple tree is generally most uncomfortable. Except with the early or summer varieties, it is hard in such locations to keep apple trees in life. After resisting conditions unsuited to them they have little power left for fruit production. In the warm, sandy soils where sweet potatoes grow large and sweet, apple trees lose their leaves and have a struggle for life from season to season. On loamy or clay soils they feel more comfortable, show a correspondingly increased growth and productiveness, are more free from disease and are longer-lived. Observations on apple growing throughout the whole of this country show that the trees require for their best growth, productiveness and longevity the following conditions:

1. Zone ..

2. Climate

3. Soil

4. Altitude

5. Rainfall

6. Drainage

7. Sunlight

8. Food

.Temperate.

.Summer cool, winter cold.

Rich loams and clays.

High.

Copious and constant.

Good.

. Abundant (air clear and cloudless).

Constant supply of humus and plant food.

In America the regions that produce the most and best apples are those that afford the largest number of these conditions.

APPLE ZONES.

The temperate zone is the native home of the apple. All around the world it finds its best general temperature for growth in this zone. In the temper

ate zone it inclines to the north and finds there rather than in the south its best or optimum condition of growth. In the south temperate zone the apple deports itself much the same as in the north temperate zone, and inclines to the cooler south rather than towards the tropical boundary. As an evidence of the hardiness of the apple tree and its love for a cool climate it may be unknown to many that most magnificent apples are grown in Canada, away north of the great lakes, on the forty-sixth parallel, north latitude. In this region the lakes and rivers are icebound for several months of the year, the ground in winter is covered with three or four feet of snow and the thermometer is sometimes 30 degrees below zero. In that region the apple is nearing the northern limit of its growth. Considering these extremes of temperature, one would begin to wonder how North Carolina, with its mild climate, could raise apples at all. It does show, however, why apple growing is so commonly unsuccessful in the cotton belt. Being a cool-loving plant, the apple tree finds in the cotton belt its extreme southern limit of endurance. The pecan tree, on the other hand, being a southern neighbor of the cotton plant, will grow and thrive well in the area of cotton production. About one-third of the area of North Carolina is in the cotton belt, one-third rolling piedmont and one-third high and mountainous. It is in this mountainous region of the State, where altitude guarantees a cool climate, that the apple grows and thrives and produces even better than it does in the renowned apple regions of the North.

MOUNTAIN REGIONS FOR APPLE CULTURE.

The

It is not generally known to apple growers that a mountain region in the South, which by virtue of its altitude affords the same cool temperature that a northern region gives, has yet other advantages that a northern location, with its higher latitude but lower altitude, cannot give. The "Sunny South," particularly in its mountain regions, has the clear air and abundant sunlight that put the rich colors on the outside of the fruit and the fine flavors within. Other things being equal, the greater the amount of sunlight the higher colored the fruit. In regions where cloudy skies are prevalent fruits and also flowers are of dull colors. Clear, sunny weather will give bright flowers and also highly tinted fruits. The maximum hours of sunlight are obtained at high elevations. It is for this reason that mountain-grown fruit is superior in color and flavor to that of the same varieties grown in the lowlands. best fruit grown in eastern United States is that produced on the slopes of the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains. The most lofty portions of these mountain ranges are found in western North Carolina. Here a rich soil, combined with high elevation, affords almost ideal conditions for commercial apple culture. Very few fruit growers in the South appreciate the splendid opportunities afforded for commercial apple growing in the high, cool, but sunny slopes of the southern Appalachian region. It is only in the last decade or so that fruit growers generally have become aware of the advantages of elevated regions for the commercial growing of hardy fruits. At present, all along the eastern slopes and foothills of the Alleghany Mountains, in Pennsylvania, in Maryland, in Virginia, in West Virginia and in North Carolina, lands which were formerly considered almost worthless for agricultural purposes are now rapidly passing the mark of $100 per acre for commercial orcharding.

DRAINAGE IN MOUNTAIN REGIONS.

Another great advantage of mountain lands for growing fruit trees is that they naturally afford the most perfect drainage. The slope of such lands is almost a perfect guarantee that they are naturally well drained or can be made so at very small expense. Orchard trees of all plants require the most perfect drainage. Since they are perennial, they cannot, like annual crops, occupy the ground only in the favored season of summer, when growth conditions are almost perfect. They must be subject to every prevailing condition of heat and cold and of flood and drought throughout the entire year. Trees placed on wet or undrained land have to resist a condition that is adverse to their growth, and their productiveness and longevity are reduced accordingly. In connection with Experiment Station work I once had charge of an orchard that was on very flat land. This orchard received almost ideal tillage, fertilization and spraying. In spite of the most constant care and attention the trees were unproductive; they shed their foliage prematurely, and not a year passed but some of them died and went to the brush pile. When this orchard should have been at the age of its greatest production and usefulness there was but a remnant of dying trees marking an ill-advised attempt to grow trees in a location entirely unsuited to them. One single circumstance will be sufficient to explain the cause of the utter failure of this orchard: Crayfish would build up their burrows in the soil beneath the trees. A pebble dropped into a burrow could often be heard to splash into water a few inches below the surface of the ground. These trees, as fruit trees always do, naturally refused to grow and produce on a waterlogged soil. In mountain regions, on account of favorable drainage, conditions of this kind are almost impossible.

THE ADVANTAGES OF ALTITUDE IN COMMERCIAL APPLE ORCHARDING.

An apple tree, in its soil and fertilizer requirements, differs little from a forest tree. The conditions of soil that will produce heavy timber will produce productive fruit trees. Forest trees grow naturally on mountain slopes because they find there a rich soil, abundant drainage and clear sunlight. The same conditions will produce large, productive, long-lived fruit trees. Where the natural forest is taken off the mountain slopes by the lumbermen a forest of fruit trees can profitably succeed it. Indeed, no cultivated crop so well holds sloping lands from washing as do the strong roots of fruit trees. The common agricultural trouble known in the South as "washing of land” is only another name for uncontrolled drainage. Trees, since they are perennial in growth and have their roots in the soil at all seasons, are more useful than any other crop in protecting mountain lands from destructive erosion. Sloping soils which will wash must necessarily be well drained. This is the foremost reason why trees like sloping land and why mountain orchards give better results than those in similarly cool locations, but on flat lands with the water table too close to the surface.

The cool but sunny slopes of southern mountains have ideal conditions of soil and drainage that are unexcelled for the culture of hardy fruits. The cool climate of a southern mountain region obtained by high altitude is, for many reasons, better for apple growing than the equally cool but less sunny locations in the North obtained by higher latitudes.

NATURAL IRRIGATION IN MOUNTAIN REGIONS.

It is not only necessary that trees be protected from excessive moisture by drainage, but to insure their best growth and productiveness they must have a copious and constant supply of water during their season of growth, and particularly when they are developing a crop of fruit. If the roots of a tree are immersed in water for any length of time its leaves will turn yellow and drop, and it will cast off its fruit. If this condition becomes chronic, as on illdrained lands, the roots will sooner or later become diseased and rot off. On the other hand, excessive droughts may leave in the soil so limited an amount of moisture that the tree will show yellow foliage and cast off its fruit as it does on too wet land. As sloping land is a natural corrective for too much water being supplied to trees, it is also a means of furnishing moisture in times of excessive drought. In elevated regions it is often found that moisture precipitated on mountain tops is carried down gradually, so that lower slopes receive from it a copious and constant supply. This is especially true where the soil is more or less mixed and underlaid with rock or shale. The rocks protect the moisture from the sun, and the roughness of a rocky or shaley bed affords a natural reservoir, which gives up its moisture in a slow but constant supply to lower lands. Moisture obtained in this way is known in the irrigated regions of the West as "seepage water" and is used to grow immense fields of wheat in the foothills clustering about the bases of high mountains. This condition is found to a greater or less degree in all mountain regions. In coves and protected places it amounts to a natural system of subirrigation. The slope that in times of flood takes excessive and injurious moisture from the roots of the trees in times of drought brings the life-giving moisture to them. In mountain regions one frequently sees large, healthy trees clinging to rocky crags, where they would scarcely appear to have sufficient soil to cover their roots. Though they have little soil, they have from their location so perfect a system of root aeration, irrigation and drainage that they grow and flourish to perfection. Such natural conditions of drainage and irrigation occur only in mountain regions. It is for this reason, more than any other, that fruit trees in mountain regions are large, vigorous and long-lived.

The late T. K. Bruner, of this Department, in his valuable work on "North Carolina and Its Resources," gives the following note on mountain apple trees :

The size to which apple trees attain in the mountains of North Carolina is a source of wonder to those who have become accustomed to the trees in the North. In one orchard in Haywood County was measured a tree that had a girth of eleven feet and nine inches, and in the same orchard, which had never been cultivated, there were a hundred other trees that were full three feet in diameter of trunk and all in the most luxurious health. All that is needed here is a population of fruit growers who understand the culture and handling of winter apples. Apples of the northern varieties grown in Watauga County are hardly recognizable because of their greater size and beauty.

AIR NECESSARY TO TREE ROOTS.

Roots of trees require air as well as moisture. If the roots of a tree are fully surrounded by water, air is excluded and the tree dies of suffocation. On ill-drained lands trees have a way of pushing their large roots partially above the surface of the soil, so that they can get the air necessary for their growth. The cypress, which grows in tidewater, sends up its knees above high-water mark, so that it can get its air in time of flood. The roots of trees, even under

the most favorable circumstances, do not go nearly so deep into the ground as is commonly supposed. Their home is between the water table and the surface. As to how commodious a home the tree roots have will depend on how much living room there is between the water table and the surface. The orchard in which the crayfish made their burrows had too cramped a layer of aerated soil to support vigorous tree life. Trees which make the maximum growth are those which have a deep water table, with a retentive but well-aerated soil above it. The roots of trees will not grow below the line of permanent groundwater. Of almost all trees three-fourths of the root system is found in the first foot of soil. One is often surprised to find that large trees uprooted by a storm have a much shallower root system than one would have expected. On the other hand, tree roots are sometimes found deep in wells, but on examination it will be found, too, that they adhere only to the air-exposed surfaces. In cities, where filling-in is done to raise the grades of streets, the deeper covering of the tree roots is almost always fatal to shade trees. The same thing is often seen where lumber mills blow out their piles of sawdust about the roots of growing trees. It is not that the sawdust in itself is injurious, but that it suffocates the tree roots by burying them beyond the reach of air.

ATMOSPHERIC DRAINAGE AND FROST PROTECTION.

In mountain regions, besides the draining of water from higher to lower levels, there is a similar drainage of air. This latter might seem to be of trifling importance in fruit growing, but it is in fact one of the most important considerations, for it tends greatly to avert frost. Freezes and frosts are undoubtedly the greatest hazard of the business of fruit growing. No disease or depredator destroys half so many hopes and dollars for the fruit grower as a few hours of frost. We are told that "the frost falleth alike on the just and on the unjust," but in seasons when the daily papers are heralding reports that an untimely frost has taken the entire fruit crop of the State some lucky fellow high up in his mountain coves, with not too many good works to his credit, has his entire crop saved as if by a miracle. Frosts appear to strike in a very erratic manner; they are, however, like other phenomena of nature, subject to very definite laws. It is well known that as air becomes heated it ascends, and as it cools it becomes heavier and falls. On sloping ground air as it cools passes down from higher to lower levels. Other things being equal, low lands are more frosty than higher lands, because the cold and frosty air drains from the higher and settles into the lower levels. A corn field in the fall gives one of the best illustrations of the places most subject to frost and those also which are exempt. On the bottom lands the blades and stalks will almost invariably show where frost has bitten first. Up on the hillsides and higher elevations the corn will often be found growing fresh and green, while in the bottoms below not a green stalk can be seen. Where knolls occur in bottoms they will often be seen to lift their greenclad sides out of the blighting frost-laden atmosphere of the surrounding valley. Air drainage is just as natural as water drainage, and for orchard locations is just as important a consideration.

The frostiest locations, and those therefore to be most avoided, are valleys shut in on all sides. To the uninitiated these places would appear to be most admirably protected, but they are veritable frost pockets. On cold nights they receive the cold air from higher regions, and frosts and freezes in them are inevitable. Once while traveling in the Rocky Mountains I saw one of these small valleys shut in by hills, in which all the vegetation was nipped by frost.