Page 24. 



BETTER FRUIT 



Fehru&ry, ip20 



The Natural Tree Brace — Home Grown Fruit Stocks 



Better Fruit, Portland, Ore.: — The 

 December issue of Better Fri'it prov- 

 ing especially meafy reading to me I 

 should like to add a word or two con- 

 cerning some of the topics discussed. 



Tlie article on natural bracing young 

 trees meets my hearty endorsement. I 

 have followed the practice for the past 

 ten years, for a majority of that time on 

 an orchard containing about two hun- 

 dred acres of apples, and find it to be 

 a good investment of time. 



In fact I have been able to make a 

 sweeping refutation of the charges 

 brought against the practice by some 

 of the wiseacres who declared the 

 scheme impractical on the following 

 counts: 



First — The braces would never knit. 

 Second — They would never get large 



By G. F. Richards, Fishkill, New York 



enough. Third — Pickers would break 

 them off by standing on them when 

 picking the center of the tree. Fourth 

 • — The interstices between the branches 

 would prove a lodging place for every 

 kind of insect, scale and fungus. Fifth — 

 The braces would grow a lot of water- 

 sprouts and make a lot of extra prun- 

 ing; and sixth, that it was a darn fool 

 idea anyway. 



I have found it of especial benefit 

 where trees have been pruned to an ex- 

 treme vase form, and in strengthening 

 the tops of topworked trees which are 

 making excessive growth. 



My practice differs from your Wash- 

 ington correspondent in that I have 

 worked with trees five years old and 

 over. I make the braces while pruning 

 in the spring, and find that it works 



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well. The stimulation due to pruning 

 seems to give the braces a big advant- 

 age over those put in without pruning. 



Tile only care needed after making 

 the braces is to cut off any lateral 

 branches which may spring from them, 

 and after the brace has made a perfect 

 union, which generally is in three or 

 four years, to cut off the ends of the 

 limbs forming the brace, which are 

 generally stunted by that time, as the 

 sap flows through the brace from trunk 

 to trunk, giving less to the tip of the 

 branch each year. 



I have had splendid results with it in 

 every variety (nearly thirty) I have 

 tried it on, with the exception of the 

 Wealthy. The reason for failure with 

 that I think is that the trees had begun 

 to bear, and in consequence had less 

 strength to put into wood. 



Taking it by and large I call it good 

 orchard practice, especially in a district 

 liable to high winds or heavy ice 

 storms. 



Now in regard to producing fruit 

 stocks in this country. It has been 

 done and I see no reason why it should 

 not be done again. 



I am intimately acquainted with an 

 orchard which was started back in the 

 late forties in the hill country of Massa- 

 chusetts. 



The owner started to grow a few 

 trees as a hobby, washing out seeds 

 from pomace, rejecting the inferior 

 stocks and budding or root-grafting the 

 stronger ones. He finally gave up his 

 farming in favor of fruit production, 

 and grew all his own trees for over 

 forty years. 



The last planting was made in 1890, 

 making an orchard of over fifty acres. 



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