TRIMMING APPLE-TREES. 23 



they commence bearing, they will need very little pruning 

 afterwards, except the cutting-away of dead and broken 

 branches. In shaping the head of an apple-tree, see that it is 

 well balanced, and not too open ; for a tree with an open 

 head is continually throwing out suckers or water-sprouts, 

 and, where one is cut away, several are almost sure to grow. 

 If the head has been formed as it should have been, the 

 branches will be so distributed that they take up all of the 

 nourishment, and there will be very little trouble from water- 

 sprouts. The limbs should not be left too near the ground, 

 as the weight of the fruit will cause the branches to sink 

 lower each year, and in a short time one will be bothered to 

 work beneath the tree. 



It often happens that fruit-trees blossom full in the spring; 

 but, when they are hi full bloom, there comes a heavy 

 shower, a thunder-shower for instance, and we have little or 

 no fruit that season. Many attribute it to the influence thun- 

 der and lightning have on the blossoms ; saying, that, if .there 

 is thunder and lightning when the trees are in full bloom, 

 the crop will be ruined for that year. This is a mistaken 

 idea. If one will examine, and see how an apple-blossom is 

 formed, he will find that it is composed of stamens and pistil, 

 or the male and female organs of the flower, and calyx and 

 corolla, or what might be called the leaves cf the flower. 

 The stamens, or male organs of the flower, produce a yellow 

 dust, or powder, called pollen, which comes in contact with 

 the end of the pistil, and fertilizes it: if there should be a 

 dashing rain, tins yellow dust, or pollen, will be washed away, 

 and the pistil will go unfertilized, the flower drops off, and 

 the crop becomes a failure. The reason why people attribute 

 the failure to thunder and lightning is probably because a 

 thunder-shower is more of a dashing rain than our other 

 showers, and more apt to wash away the pollen. 



The great obstacle in the way of many farmers planting 

 apple-trees is, that they bear only every other year, and, the 

 years they do bear, apples are so plenty that one hardly 

 knows what to do with them ; while the next }-ear they do 

 not bear at all. There must be some reason why trees bear 

 one year, and not the next ; and, if we can find out the cause, 

 is there not a chance of changing the bearing years of our 

 apple-trees, so that they will bear moderate crops every year, 



