SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 345 



and winds. If the short trees and shrubs are cut away the rest will soon decay, 

 not on account of the wind alone, as we are usually told, but by the sun also ; 

 for I claim that the exposure to the sun has as much to do with it as the 

 winds. 



Where trees must be trimmed up high, I would allow the side branches to 

 grow (although they might be kept short) until the top was large enough to 

 shade the trunk, not from the summer sun only, but from the winter sun as 

 well, which is probably the most injurious. — C'has. D. Zimmerman before Am. 

 Nurserymen's Association. 



DWARF APPLE TREES-FRENCH PARADISE STOCKS. 



The problem, how to provide the possessors of limited grounds with an assort- 

 ment of home-grown apples, adequate to their wants, and, at the same time, to 

 avoid the necessity of introducing into such limited grounds trees whose nat- 

 ural growth will be sure soon to occasion a disproportion between them and the 

 plat they occupy, as well as the desire of the nurseryman and pomologist to 

 rapidly test the varieties with which they may have to do, and that without the 

 necessity of devoting a large space to the purpose, have induced a resort, with 

 the apple, to the process now so commonly applied to all our leading fruits — 

 that of dwarfing, and at the same time hastening fructification by budding or 

 grafting the varieties upon dissimilar stocks. 



For the reason, as I imagine, that most buyers are in the habit of requiring 

 large-sized trees, even when dwarfs are called for, it is the custom of nurserymen 

 in general to use what is known as the Doucin stock for dwarfing apples, since 

 the young trees so treated sooner reach the requisite size. On this stock, how- 

 ever, the vigor of the growth and the ultimate size of the tree are but slightly 

 diminished ; nor is the period of fructification very considerably hastened ; while, 

 as an inevitable consequence, the distance apart at which they should be planted 

 is only proportionately diminished. 



For the owners of village or city gardens, who of necessity can devote to 

 fruit only a few rods of ground, in which a full-sized tree, or even an over- 

 grown shrub, would appear out of keeping with the surroundings, and also for 

 the trial grounds of the nurseryman and pomologist, in which quantity of fruit 

 is of less consequence than early fructification, and in which also close planting 

 insures a considerable diminution of the expense of cultivation, a little thought 

 or experience suffices to allay the anxiety for large trees. 



To supply the want of this large and increasing class of planters, resort is 

 had to a yet more dwarfish variety of the apple — the French Paradise Apple — 

 which usually attains a size very little larger than that of a well-grown currant 

 or gooseberry bush, and which, for that reason, may be planted from five to 

 six feet apart each way, and yet leave sufficient space to accommodate the ulti- 

 mate growth of the tree. 



The French Paradise stock seems to be at home in almost any soil adapted 

 to fruit growing, although, in light or poor soils, it will, doubtless, sooner and 

 more constantly demand the employment of fertilizers. Like all dwarfs, its 

 roots extend but a limited distance, and hence, in any soil, they will the sooner 

 exhaust the fertility within their reach, for this reason requiring constant, care- 

 ful and thorough cultivation. 



Unlike the pear dwarfed upon quince stocks, all varieties of the apple seem 

 to be alike successful on the paradise stock ; the chief ground of preference 



