THE APPLE ORCHARD IN SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 327 



Mr. Andrews : When you cut them back at the top it acts as 

 an injury. It does not require as much sap to support that top, 

 and that extra sap will always, when the top is trimmed back, show 

 itself in the water sprouts. All those badly planted trees will show 

 water sprouts ; it may be a way they have of renewing themselves 

 after they receive an injury. 



Mr. Yahnke : I think water sprouts show that a tree wants to 

 expend its vitality, and if the chance is taken away to expand itself 

 normally it will show it in water sprouts. 



Mr. Philips : An apple tree is like a man. A man will make 

 a fool of himself and will do it in a different way from what any 

 other man would. Now the Northwestern Greening you can cut in 

 any way, and it will not produce water sprouts. The McMahon 

 White is a vigorous grower, and yet you cut it at all if it is grow- 

 ing vigorously, and it will make a lot of water sprouts. It all de- 

 pends upon the variety. 



Mr. J. C. Ferris (la.) : I want to say a word about gathering 

 apples. The reader of a previous paper advanced some very good 

 ideas of the way we should pick our apples and keep them in good 

 shape. We use no kind of vessel to pick in, we find them unhandy and 

 in the way; but one of the best things to pick in is a common grain 

 sack cut in two, with a hook in the top as a bail fixed to hang it on 

 a limb, in which to drop the apples. I tried that with great success. 

 You can take a grain sack and make two nice little pails of it. Then 

 I use a long, light spruce ladder that will reach to the top of almost 

 any tree and drop that against the tree. Of course, it will some- 

 times break some little limbs, but that will do no harm. We find 

 a stepladder all right for the lower limbs, but have also a light ladder 

 that will reach to .the very top of the tree, and then with this pail 

 made of a grain sack to put your apples in you will find it about as 

 convenient as anything you can use. We shipped one carload to 

 Chicago. They were just packed in baskets covered with burlap 

 and shipped in that way. It is a very nice way to handle apples 

 indeed. They were just common bushel baskets covered with 

 burlap. 



The gentleman who read the paper gives us the idea that it is 

 simply an injury which arrests the circulation of the tree that causes 

 water sprouts. The water sprout comes below the injury, and 

 any tree that is badly injured will throw out water sprouts. It may 

 be that Mr. Philips is right and that the Northwestern Greening 

 will not throw out water sprouts, no matter how much it may be 

 pruned or injured? 



Mr. Philips : Did you ever see any ? 



Mr. Ferris : I saw some little, fine sprouts, I don't know 

 whether you would call them water sprouts or not. I have seen 

 them at the base of the tree, and I think that it is a good idea to break 

 them off. 



Question : "What apple will keep the longest, the Patten's 

 Greening or the Northwestern Greening?" 



Mr. Elliot : I will answer that question by saying the North- 

 western Greening. 



