88 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



trees were too low, but when picking fruit I always thought them too higli. 

 In loose sandy soil I have seen holes around the body of the tree, in some 

 insf:ances of the size of a water pail, caused by the wind swaying the tree. I 

 had an orchard in the south part of the State. The trees were trained high. 

 On the Talman Sweet and Greening the limbs hung too low. 



Mr. Hedden" — On my father's place the trees were trained very low, so low- 

 that one could not see a team in the road by the side of the orchard without 

 getting close down to the ground. Those trees never split down, and it is one 

 of the best orchards in the State. It is now 40 years old, and root-grafted. 

 One tree was high trained, and we alv/ays had trouble to gather the fruit from 

 it. The orchard was cultivated 18 or 20 years, and the branches on the most 

 of the trees came together, and in some instances passed each other. Is there 

 any other reason but the convenience of cultivation, for high training? 



Mr. Curtis — If Greenings were set alternate with Wagener, low training 

 might do— but an orchard set altogether with Greenings and low trained you 

 could not get through when the trees got large and came into bearing. 



Mr. Tracy — Some object to high training on the ground that the body of 

 the tree is more tender than the limbs. In Wisconsin trees that were low 

 trained were not killed, while those that had high tops were for the most part 

 killed. High training might be objectionable on that account. 



Mr. Curtis — I had two trees in AVisconsin that were low trained, — the limbs 

 came out within six inches of the ground. They promised well for five years; 

 but they are going now the same as the others. The south side of the limbs 

 are dying and dead, half the top of both are dead. But we need not take this 

 point into consideration here. We are not troubled in that way. 



Mr. Parmelee — I want to say a word about this training of trees. We 

 cannot make a mark and say " that is the place for the head." I have some 

 trees that do not suit me. If I were allowed to go into a nursery and select as 

 I would wish, I might get all perfect trees, but it is not to be expected that if 

 I were buying a thousand trees that they would be all perfect, and we must 

 do the best we can with those that are not. There are some varieties that we 

 cannot get to head as high as we might wish. I can point to some extremes. 

 Some persons set a tree and prune it up to six feet high, with a top about the 

 size of a hen. Such a man needs experience. It will not do to take off too 

 many side branches at once ; it will rob the tree. I favor a good while, six, or 

 eight, or ten years, in getting the tree as high as necessary. 1 do not believe in 

 very high or very low training. You can get something to stand on to gather 

 your fruit. A dry goods box is not the best thing you can get. A man who 

 has much fruit to gather needs a good fruit ladder, and then it makes no dif- 

 ference whether the trees are three or five feet in the body. I do not believe 

 we can get as good color in fruit on low trees as on high. The lower leaves 

 on trees and plants are not healthy. In old orchards the lower limbs need 

 cutting off, — if allowed to shade the' ground the moss will cover it and the air 

 will be excluded to a certain extent from the orchard. There are many things 

 about fruit, its fairness and its color, that cannot be explained. I have seen 

 trees that I thought were headed too low. The fruit was not fair. In peaches 

 low trained they generally divide into four or five limbs, and in this way, hav- 

 ing more and more leverage, finally break down. The way to do is to keep a 

 leader if possible, but it is not always possible. I have often seen holes in the 

 ground around the body of trees. They are as apt to be around a low trained 

 tree as a high one. The true cause is setting the tree too deep iu the ground. 



