MY MODEL TREE. 22/ 



grown on the plan shown in the accompanying illustrations, which 

 represents a "model tree" as seen from the northeast side. He sets 

 all his apple trees inclined slightly toward the sun, training 

 the heaviest side to grow in that direction, whereas ninety-nine out 

 of a hundred orchard trees growing naturally show their heaviest 

 growth on the northeast side, working out thereby their ultimate 

 and certain destruction. 



The writer of this is here endeavoring to show the imperative 

 necessity of growing apple trees in the Northwest towards the sun. 

 In planting such trees do not follow the advice that says to set them 

 slanting towards the three or three-thirty o'clock sun, but rather 

 to the one o'clock sun or, at least, not later than the one-thirt'y 

 sun. I would nearly as soon set a tree leaning northeast and be 

 done with it as to set one leaning southwest. Thousands of trees 

 have gone to a slow and lingering death by setting them slanting 

 to the southwest, as so often instructed to do. 



All agree that an apple tree here in the Northwest, under our 

 dry air and burning sun, sends most of its sap into the branches 

 on the northeast side, and for this the writer has found a remedy, 

 which is to clip oflf nearly all of the branches that grow on the 

 northeast side, cutting them off close to the trunk and keeping them 

 cut off until the tree is in bearing. This will also permit a con- 

 venient opening to slip up a ladder to gather the fruit in the top 

 of the tree. As soon as the tree begins to bear, it seems that the 

 habit of growing in this way has become fixed, and from then on 

 the tree will need no further care and will live to a good old age 

 and continue to be self-protecting. 



Following this advice will enable the orchardist to do away 

 with a thousand and one devices that have been and are still used. 

 Think of one growing apples in among the various kinds of shrubs 

 and bushes set on the sunny side of the apple tree for protection. 

 Do your best, and sooner or later every device herein described for 

 self-protection will prove an eyesore and a failure. Cutting off 

 these northeast shoots forces the tree to feed the branches of the 

 sunny side of the tree. In addition to this, I take special care by 

 mulching of such roots as are exposed to the sun. 



The tree shown in the accompanying illustrations — and in 

 each illustration the tree shown is the same and the point of view 

 the same, the one having been taken with the leaves on and the other 

 without — is a Fall Orange top-grafted onto a Virginia 

 crab, and is about twenty-five years old. It bore last fall a crop 

 of three barrels. 



The writer of this article planted his first apple trees in northern 

 Iowa in the spring of 1854 and was eighty years old last October, 

 but is still nimble enough to ascend the ladder and gather the fruit, 

 as he is seen about to do in the accompanying illustrations. 



