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ments for setting apple trees along division fences and roadsides, instead of 

 in orchard form, with a recognition of mutual rights of contiguous owners 

 in the one case, and an encouraging illustration in the other, he says : 



Such places are usually fertile, trees thrive ; have plenty of light and air ; 

 practically take up little or no room, and where they are on the line of ad- 

 joining farms let each neighbor plant every alternate tree, and thus they 

 may be planted near the fence, and yet the arrangement be perfectly equit- 

 able. Let upright growing varieties of apple trees be more generally used 

 for wayside trees than they are. The prettiest piece of roadway about here is 

 bordered on each side by a row of bearing apple trees, being without fence 

 and smooth to the traveled roadway. These trees mark the line of the road, 

 are ornamental, profitable, and do not shade the road to its detriment in 

 drying off after rains, as taller trees do. 



Keeping the Bakk Healthy. — Prof. W. E. Lazenby says that he is ac- 

 quainted with an orchard of fifteen apple trees, now 26 years old, that has 

 been regularly and systematically treated to a wash of soft soap about May 

 20 and again June 20 each year. Less than half a dozen borers have been 

 found in this orchard and the trees are all in a thrifty, vigorous condition. 

 In neighboring orchards where this precaution was not taken, the trees have 

 been killed by scores, while many that remain are so much injured as to be 

 worthless. Lye is sometimes used in place of soap, but the latter is a much 

 more effective preventive. It can be readily applied with an old broom. 

 Beside making the tree obnoxious to the borer, the soap keeps the bark in a 

 healthy condition. This remedy may be applied to all trees or shrubs liable 

 to be attacked by borers. 



Coeeless Apples. — Mr. C. G. Atkins, of Maine, makes a plea for selec- 

 tion, with reference to securing apples without cores. He says: "Whether 

 for dessert, for kitchen use, or for the evaporator, the presence of a core is 

 a decided draw back to the usefulness of an apple. The seeds and hulls 

 must be removed at the cost of considerable trouble or expense, and with 

 great waste, or they give great annoyance when they get into the mouth or 

 between the teeth. We submit to these disadvantages because we are accus- 

 tomed to them, and because the slow growth of the apple tree, and the sup- 

 posed uncertainty as to the character of new varieties, from whatever seed, 

 have discouraged all attempts at improvement in any definite direction. I 

 do not think this state of things will continue always. Future generations 

 will possess varieties as good as ours in all other respects and practically 

 without cores. They can simply pare and then slice them without further 

 preparation. How soon this happy time will come I cannot say; but it will 

 depend largely, no doubt, on how soon the attention of horticulturists is 

 turned to the matter, and efforts are put forth to produce such an apple. 



Any one who will take the trouble to examine into the matter will find 

 that there are already observable some encouraging phenomena. Apples 

 vary remarkably in the numbers of seeds, in the shape and size of the seed 

 cells, and in the character of the hulls that line them. In some varieties 

 these hulls are thick and tough, cutting the victim's gums like knives. In 

 others they are so thin and tender that they can be chewed up without much 

 annoyance. I have just observed that some specimens of Pound Sweet have 

 remarkably thin hulls, which are, besides, not continuous over the 



