WINTER MEETING AT LEBANON. 213 



and exposed in the center, and water-sprouts begin to appear well up 

 on the limbs. This is the evidence of a law of nature — an effort by 

 the tree to repair the damage done, and it is a great mistake to cut 

 them out indiscriminately; a number of the best should be left to grow 

 where needed, and the thinning and cutting should be among the un- 

 der limbs, many of which will be found in an unnatural and bad condi- 

 tion, their vitality exhausted, many of the sap-cells broken or bursted 

 by the frequent bending for months under a load of fruit. By care and 

 proper treatment you can carry on a renewing process, and soon have 

 the tops looking like a young orchard and your apples large and fine. 

 Do all pruning with a sharp knife or fine, sharp saw, and paint all large 

 cuts to prevent the wood from checking and starting rot. 



The advantages of heads formed at three and a half to four feet 

 are, trees will be stronger and not liable to break when loaded with 

 fruit, as some of the limbs will tip the ground and thus give relief to a 

 strain that would cause them to break when twisted and swayed by the 

 Tiolence of the storm. The bodies being shaded, they are not liable to 

 sun-scald or bark-burst, and the fruit can be gathered at one-half the 

 cost that it can from very high tops. When the orchard is yielding 

 heavy crops, care must be taken to stimulate the trees with manure and 

 extra cultivation to enable them to ripen their fruit and maintain their 

 normal condition. If not done, you will be getting fruit at the expense 

 of the vitality of your trees, and premature decay will be the result. 

 Some few varieties of apples seem to grow and bear abundant crops in 

 almost any soil, from poor to very rich, and over a wide range of coun- 

 try, while others seem more local in their nature, and require special 

 care and treatment to get good crops. Hence, if the orchard be made 

 up with a selection of varieties from eastern catalogues, as many of our 

 Missouri orchards were in an early day, not suited to our soil and cli- 

 mate, no after management, though it be extra good, will ever give sat- 

 isfactory results. 



This is the rock on which thousands have stranded any many more 

 will, as the people are continually buying varieties from traveling men 

 representing nurseries in distant states, not suited to our climate and 

 soil. I know a number of such orchards in North Missouri that hardly 

 pay rent for the land they occupy, while others who were not carried 

 away with new, strange and impossible things and strange gods, but 

 planted our standard home varieties, are making money. One man, 

 with such an orchard of sixteen acres planted sixteen years ago, has 

 netted $9,000, the Ben Davis, of which there are 220 in the orchard, 

 having netted in one year $60 per acre. Thus far I have spoken of 



