CHARACTERISTICS OF FRUIT TREES. 



355 



Fig. 84. Mr. Lee's Hedge. 



A very indifferent wooden fence will last 

 five years, and a light barrier of posts and 

 rails will best suit the taste of most far- 

 mers. A much more convenient, and very 

 excellent one for the purpose, is the move- 

 able hurdle fence made of light chestnut 

 rails, which costs but little, and may be readi- 



ly removed from one place or field to an- 

 other, as the case requires. 



No better tail piece can be given to this 

 long article, than the above sketch, repre- 

 senting the remarkably fine specimen of 

 fhe Buckthorn hedge in the grounds of 

 John C. Lee, Esq., of Salem, Mass. 



HINTS ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OP FRUIT TREES. 



BY F. K. PHCENIX, DELAVAN, WISCONSIN- 



I wish to invite the attention of your 

 readers to the importance of an acquaint- 

 ance with the characteristics of fruit trees. 



This branch of horticultural knowledge, 

 I am well satisfied, has been very much neg- 

 lected by most of our gardening writers, 

 and still more so by many of our nursery- 

 men, but of late I am happy to say it is 

 attracting more attention. " The Fruits and 

 Fruit Trees of America," contains much ex- 

 cellent information in regard to pears, 

 plums and peaches in this respect, but in re- 

 gard to apples, which are by far the most 

 important of all, there is only enough to 

 make one wish there was very much more. 



The following remarks are intended to 

 apply more or less to all the different 

 kinds of fruit, but more particularly to the 

 apple. 



It is a well known fact that there are 

 marked peculiarities in the different varie- 

 ties of fruit trees, and it is indeed strange 

 that there should not have been more at- 

 tention paid to them, by our nurserymen 

 and horticultural writers. Nature is quite 

 as uniform and unchanging in regard to the 

 tree as the fruit, and hence the necessity of 

 describing and studying the characteristics 

 of the one as well as of the other, in order to 

 acquire ourselves or afford to others, the 



