STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 259 



pruning will always be necessary it is difficult to lay down any 

 arbitrary rules for it. The unnecessary limbs should be removed 

 every year after the first. No branch should be allowed to grow 

 in such a shape as to form a crotch to split down in after years. In 

 the center, limbs that cross each other and chafe should be removed. 

 Care should be taken to keep the tops of the trees sufficiently open 

 to admit sunshine and air for perfecting the fruit, but it is not well to 

 remove too many of the top branches at onetime lest the sun strike 

 the trunk too hard. In pruning, the branches removed should be 

 cut close to the juncture with the trunk or other branch, and the 

 wound made smooth with a sharp knife. Long stumps will not 

 heal over quickly, and usually die back to the base and carry dis- 

 ease to the heart of the tree. The light pruning is best done be- 

 tween the middle of June and the first of August. If this is com- 

 menced when the trees are young and continued annually, there 

 will be no large branches to remove, but if in any event a large 

 limb must be removed, it is best to do it between November and 

 March, and the wound made by it should immediately be covered 

 with white paint or grafting cement. 



The land in a young orchard must be kept under cultivation. It 

 is as essential to keep down grass and weeds as for any farm crop. 

 Any hoed crop that does not require culture alter the middle of 

 July may be grown for ten years, or uutil the trees come into full 

 bearing. I prefer corn or potatoes. If the soil is poor it may be 

 improved with barnyard manure spread over the surface in the fall. 

 After the trees are in full bearing no crop but the fruit should be 

 taken from the ground. Still the ground ought to be kept loose 

 and free from weeds, which may be done with plow and cultivator, 

 or by young pigs being kept in the lot during the early summer 

 months ; or it may be seeded to clover and mowed twice in the 

 season, and the hay is to be left upon the ground as a mulch and 

 to help keep up fertility. All crops raised in the orchard should 

 be such as do not rapidly impoverish the soil. 



AGE FOR TRANSPLANTING. 



It is generally conceded that two or three-year-old trees are the 

 best fDr starting an orchard. My choice is three years. Larger 

 trees are more difficult to dig and preserve the roots, are much 

 mor<». expensive to transplant, and do not recover from the shock of 

 tran&i- 'anting as soon from the nursery, while smaller trees are 

 more liablo to get run over aud broken in cultivating. 



