HOW TO CULTIVATE THE APRICOT. 



There i?, perhaps, no fruit which so gene- 

 rally eludes the grasp of most cultivators in 

 this country, as the apricot. A tree, hardy 

 enough to bear our winters, which makes an 

 abundance of sound and healthy wood, 

 blossoms profusely, and sets a large crop of 

 fruit, as a common standard tree in the 

 open garden, without the aid of walls or 

 espaliers, ought to be as easily cultivated, 

 and produce its fruit in as great abundance, 

 as the peach. 



Yet, though the orchards of the middle 

 states produce millions of bushels of peach- 

 es annually, apricots may almost be counted 

 by dozens. Here and there, in some espe- 

 cially favorable locality, they are yielded 

 abundantly; but, for the most part, a fine 

 basket of apricots is a rarer sight than one 

 of oranges or pine-apples ; for the latter, at 

 least, are sent to us in abundance from our 

 neighbors of the West Indies. 



Now, as the apricot, though by no means 

 equal to the peach, is still a most agreeable 

 fruit for the dessert, and, when not fully 

 mature, perhaps the best of all fruits for 

 tarts, and as, besides this, its value is 

 greatly enhanced by the absolute dearth of 

 all other fruits in the open garden, in July, 

 it may be worth while to bestow a little 

 thought upon the real nature of the difficul- 

 ties that stand in the way of its cultiva- 

 tion. 



First of all, then, the apricot is a more 

 tender tree than the peach ; not, perhaps, 

 as regards its power of enduring a low tem- 

 perature in winter without injury, but in 

 the susceptibility of the bark to injury from 

 the sun and frost combined. Hence, we 

 suggest two modes of guarding against 



this, viz: 1st, keeping the trees low; and 

 2d, keeping the bark protected by a wash. 



Keeping the trees low. — Experience has 

 taught us that, for our climate, all exposure 

 of the trunk of the apricot to the sun does 

 positive harm. The head or top should be 

 looked upon in the light of an umbrella or 

 sun-shade, intended by nature to guard the 

 trunk from violent heat and sudden chan- 

 ges ; and the same good result is produced 

 by shading the roots of a tree, or, rather, 

 the soil directly over them.* For this rea- 

 son, never " trim up" the stem of an apricot 

 tree. On the contrary, if you are planting 

 a young tree, always cut it down to two or 

 three feet, so as to force it to throw out 

 branches as near the ground as possible. 

 During the first three years after planting, 

 head back the shoots severely every spring, 

 say two-thirds of the previous years' growth. 

 This will force the tree to form a thick, low 

 head, more like a wide, compact bush than 

 an ordinary tree. The annual treatment of 

 this tree afterwards, as regards pruning, 

 will be to shorten-back the growth of the 

 shoots produced the previous year, by taking 

 about one-third at the end of each shoot, 

 and to thin out any dead or decaying 

 branches. Occasionally, say once in four 

 or five years, as the tree grows older, it will 

 need heading-back more severely, say two 

 or three feet, in the principal limbs, so as 

 to force it to produce a new head, and pre- 

 serve its bushy, compact form. "With a 

 tree pruned in this way, forming in fact a 

 larqe apricot bush, the foliage will shade 

 the trunk and the roots so as to prevent in- 



* If nctahaded bj the roots, then let (hem be covered with 

 straw, tan, or litter, two or three inches deep. 



