WINTER MEETING, 1880. 23 



pruning year by year — cutting out small branches where the same are too thick 

 and keeping the bodies and main limbs free from sprout? — bus much to do 

 ■with the production of a greater proportion of perfect fruit, large iu size and 

 fine in quality. 



From my own experience, as well as observation, I am of the opinion that 

 the profits of the orcbard are augmented by beading the trees low. On such 

 varieties as the Rhode Island Greening and some otbers whose blanches inclino 

 to a more lateral growth, thus giving a very spreading top, I would start tho 

 top about four feet from the ground, while to the Northern Spy and such 

 varieties as naturally make a more upright growth, I would endeavor to give 

 not over three feet of trunk. Trees with their tops formed thus low will be 

 more easily kept erect, will have less of their fruit shaken off by the wind, and 

 the expense of gathering will be quite a per cent less than from those allowed 

 to grow much taller. 



As to the best time in the year to trim an orchard much has been said and 

 written, and considerable difference of opinion and practice prevails. And 

 while I believe the time of trimming of less importance than the manner, still 

 I think that it can be most successfully and properly done when the trees are 

 free both from fruit and leaves, and that all things considered, perhaps no 

 time is better adapted to this important work than the month of March and 

 the first part of April. 



Shall we plow and cultivate our orchards, is a question of much impor- 

 tance ; and in reply I would say, ''Yes; but it should be done with the utmost 

 care." I think that not only young trees are far less likely to suffer and have 

 their growth retarded by drouth where the land is planted to a hoed crop and 

 often stirred with a cultivator than where it is in grass or a sowed crop, but 

 that also, as the trees come into bearing, we get finer fruit and more of it from 

 an orchard that is well fertilized and thoroughly cultivated. But as the trees 

 advance in size and the roots become extended, the plowing should be very shal- 

 low, and at no time should it be deeply plowed near the trees. 



I have an orchard that has been set twenty-two years, with which I have 

 been very successful, and which has borne a large amount of very fine fruit, 

 which I have plowed and cropped' nearly every year, and most of the trees are 

 still in fine thrifty condition, making a good growth every year, and but few have 

 died out. As the trees have now become very large, and being headed pretty 

 low, it is very inconvenient to plow it, I have therefore seeded it to grass, 

 and fertilize by spreading a liberal coating of coarse manure upon the surface, 

 which I consider the next best way of keeping up the production of fine fruit, 

 and a large amount of it. 



Ashes, either unleacbed or leached, are of great value to the orchard, and 

 there is little danger of using too many, — spread broadcast over the ground. 



While it is evident that by very heavy and constant manuring it is possible 

 to stimulate a too rapid growth of the orchard, resulting probably in its being 

 shorter lived, still my observation has led me to conclude that where there is 

 one thus injured, there are scores in which more manuring and better care 

 would add largely to the profit to be derived from them. 



No intelligent farmer would expect to get a remunerative crop of grain of 

 any one given kind from the same piece of ground for twenty or twenty-five 

 years in succession, without a constant effort to keep up the fertility of the 

 soil; and even with such effort a rotation of crops is the far wiser course to 

 pursue. But with the orchard there is no chance for 'rotation. When the 



