You can also download the whole book as a PDF file from Google Books. See the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: The American Apple Orchard

Here's a good quote from the section on pruning:

"Occasionaly one sees stubs left 6 inches or a foot long, but such work is only done by the blundering ignoramus who knows nothing about fruit growing and who will never read this book"

LOL. No, political correctness wasn't a big issue in 1906. I love to read old treatises on agriculture........well on any craft or art. We think of life a hundred years ago as being primitive, but it was anything but. I keep up on new developments in my trade, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. After a centennial of the love affair with the magic of modern chemisty, I see a lot of interest and reviving some of the old ways of doing things.

I would say that the best fruit pruning books are in fact the ones written 100 years ago. I don't know how that information got lost in time but it did. See Wright's Fruit Growers Guide which is available from archive.org.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: Wright guide

I'm also reading "Apple Growing" by M.C. Burritt published in 1912. On the future of apple growing in the U.S., he states:

"In the writer's opinion the future of apple growing in the United States is likely to shape itself largely in the great commercial regions. As these become more and more developed and as the industry becomes more specializd the farmer who is merely growing apples as a side line, except where he is delivering directly to a special or a local market, will be crowded out. Here as elsewhere it will be a case of the survival of the fittest. In the production of apples commercially those growers who can produce the best article the most cheaply are bound to win out in the end.

It would, therefore, seem to be advisable for the general farmer to plant apples only under two conditions; first, when he has a very favorable location and site and plants heavily enough to make it worth while to have the equipment and skilled labor necessary to make the enterprise a success, and second, when he can market his fruit directly in a local market."

The 1907 also addresses dwarfing rootstock. At that time intensive culture was the norm in Europe, but because of the availability of large amounts of cheap land in the U.S., seedling trees (which required relatively little skilled labor to train) were the norm. It was not because they were ignorant of or couldn't get dwarfing rootstock; indeed, they recommended it for the home orchard.

Applenut

Applenut:

I stumbled upon some literature dated 189? for the county I live in in Kansas. Apparently the state had done a survey, county by county, of how many fruit trees were planted. My county had in excess of a quarter of a million peach trees! Back then, every little farmstead must have had it's own orchard. Times have changed. On further research, I learned that a few years later, there was a very prolonged warm fall followed immediately by an extremely cold weather pattern. Bye-bye peach trees!