366 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Budding- to Make Fruit Trees Symmetrical. 



When young fruit trees are received from the nursery, one is 

 occasionally found that is one-sided. No branches, or but one, it may 

 be, are growing on one side, while the other is well provided with 

 them. It is difficult to prune such a tree into symmetrical shape with- 

 out cutting it back very severely, and so losing considerable time in 

 growth. In such a case one may try the experiment of budding the 

 one-sided tree with buds from the same tree, or another of the same 

 variety. Of course, only a small, young tree could be operated upon 

 in this way, but the smaller trees are by far the safest to order when 

 planting an orchard. 



How to Raise Fruit and Tree Seedlings. 



The producing of seedlings is now a great industry in this coun- 

 try. In former times Europe was depended on to furnish all the fruit 

 and tree seedlings required, but it is not so today. There are still a 

 few articles, which, owing to climatic conditions, we are unable to pro- 

 duce here, and these are got from Europe, and many seeds are better 

 had 'from there. Taking the fruits, there are pear, apple, plum, peach 

 and cherry as the main articles. Of these, pear is had altogether from 

 Europe, and so are the Mahaleb cherry and the Myrobolan plum. 

 Apple, peach, many plums and Mazzard cherry are home products. 

 Hundreds of bushels of some of these are sown annually, and of the 

 apple perhaps a thousand bushels. The cider mills turn out a great 

 deal of seed, but there are hundreds of bushels got together by a few 

 parties who make a business of procuring them for nurserymen. In 

 France, where pear orchards are as much a feature as those of apples 

 are here, the pears are used to make a drink which is called perry, 

 corresponding to the cider we produce from apples, and it is in this 

 way that so many pear seeds are obtained. The pear is such a sure 

 bearer that it is rare indeed that there is a failure of the crop. Ma- 

 haleb cherry comes from Europe, but the Mazzard is the wild cherry 

 of the older cities, which have sprung up along fences and in woods 

 from stones dropped by birds from cultivated garden sorts. These 

 are got together in small lots, often by the small lots children gathered. 



In nursery practice pear and apple are mostly sown in spring, the 

 other kinds named in the fall, though there are large planters who 

 prefer to keep the whole lot until spring. The only secret of success 

 is not to allow the seeds to become dry. In old farm houses it used 

 to be the style to have cellars with earth floors. There was, generally, 



