Fruits and Culture. 3v^3 



length below it, allowing the insertion of the bud cut from the twig in 

 such manner that there is the slightest possible film of wood and baric one- 

 half to three-quarters of an inch in length. This bud is tucked in this 

 open slit of bark and then tied up, using three or four wraps below the 

 bud and as many above, tying with rafifia, cotton twine or woolen yarn, 

 the object being to keep the bark closed to exclude air and water. This 

 should knit in a few days and within two weeks it is usually necessary to 

 cut the string on the opposite side of the tree from the bud to allow for 

 the expanding size of the growing stock. Otherwise the expansion oi 

 the growing stock would cause the string to girdle the tree and choke 

 the bud. Early the succeeding spring before sap starts three-eights oi 

 an inch above the bud cut away the seedling stock and be careful to al- 

 low only the bud desired to grow. Rub oft" suckers. These young 

 trees the first summer will, with suitable care, attain a height of from 

 three to seven feet, depending on the character of the soil, amount of 

 cultivation and the rainfall. 



QUESTION OF HARDIHOOD. 



They should be dug about the ist of November and buried in earth 

 to winter, for the reason that such trees are apt to make a rank growth 

 and do not ripen up as completely the first two or three years as they wail 

 with increasing age and the growth thrown into more branches. The 

 writer is in the habit of sowing oats at the rate of three bushels per acre 

 in the nursery rows- about the ist of August, which shall so draw upon 

 the surplus moisture as to compel the ripening of the trees and thus being 

 mature wdien the first blasts of winter come. The question of hardihood 

 of most varieties of fruit trees is very largely a question of the condition 

 of ripening or maturity. Fruit trees that are perfectly ripe and mature 

 can stand without harm a low range of temperature. Lt is the trees 

 which from unwise, too late cultivation or warm and moist autumns arc 

 tempted to grow too late that are unripe, and which suft'er severely with 

 succeeding winters. The heavy destruction and loss of trees in the win- 

 ter of 1898-9 was not so much due to the temperature of 30 or 40 degrees 

 below zero as to the fact that the autumn had been warm and moist and 

 that trees were not as well matured and as completely at rest as is usual 

 in our State. — Twentieth Century Farmer. 



