WINTER MEETING. 133 



But, Mr. Jones, there are a few of the breed left yet, and before you can be 

 raised to the highest degree of the craft, you will have to prove to the fraternity 

 that you have killed at least one. 



In addition to the necessity of protecting young apple-trees from the hot sun 

 in dry weather, you must in some way secure them against borers in summer and 

 rabbits and mice in winter. I have tried but two of the usual methods in use. I 

 have wrapped with white muslin and with the lately invented wood wraps. The 

 former will succeed, if properly applied and persisted in until the tree is six or 

 eight years old, but only by vigilance. The cloth must be thin, and closely put on 

 clear down to the roots, and tied with a very narrow strip of the same material 

 that will rot and break, if necessary, as the tree grows too large for its clothing; 

 and the wrapping should be changed at least once in two years — better every year, 

 and a search made for borers, for there may have been eggs in the bark before the 

 first wrapping. 



The new wood wraps have not been a complete success with me. They have 

 kept the rabbits ofl, but not all the borers out by any means. Then in case of fire 

 they are even worse than cloth. While I have had no experience with the wire 

 cloth protectors, 1 am forcibly impressed with their seeming perfection for the 

 purpose. They are more costly at the start, but no doubt as cheap as anything in 

 the outcome. 



In cultivating your apple-trees you may raise corn in it for a very few years, 

 providing you don't plant it too near the trees, and will cut it up and haul it out 

 early in the winter, and by no means make a shock around a tree. But you must 

 never raise any kind of small grain at any time, nor grass, among young trees, 

 lest grasshoppers be raised or induced to come and strip them. And two conse- 

 cutive years of grasshoppers are equal to one fire. Better raise root crops and 

 vegetables, or give your orchard clean cultivation without anything else than the 

 trees. The cultivation should be frequent, but only deep enough to kill the weeds 

 and grass. 



When your trees are seven or eight years old from planting, you may sow 

 your ground in clover, cutting it as often as need be with a mowing machine and 

 letting it rot on the ground. And for this purpose you will find a one-horse ma- 

 chine almost indispensable. 



And now, Mr. Jones, this paper will constitute your first lecture. When you 

 learn it well you can be initiated. When you have heard and learned a half dozen 

 more, and have had five yeirs' experience and killed at least one professional apple- 

 tree pruner, you can be admitted into the highest degree of the sublime order of 

 the W. A. G. S. (Western Apple Growers' Association). 



THE ORCE\RD— DISTANCE TO PLANT AND VARIETIES. 



ROBERT E. BAILEY, FULTON MO. 



It is characteristic of the age that nothing is regarded as settled. This is 

 true in regard to the distance apart trees in orchards should be planted as well as 

 other things. Some growers plant trees as far as 40 feet apart each way ; others as 

 close as 15 feet each way. The tendency among commercial growers seems to be 

 toward thick planting, with a view to thinning when the trees begin to crowd 

 each other. I planted my first orchard some 12 or 13 years ago 20 feet apart each 

 way, half apple trees and half peach. The hard winters of '82 '86, thinned out 

 the peach-trees before I harvested a crop, leaving the-apple trees a little more than 

 28 feet apart each way, and the rows diagonal across the field. This I do not like. 



