HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 427 



trunk smoothly trimmed to four feet high; there form the head. 

 Leave all the limbs on the southwest side you can that will not 

 interfere with each other; then what pruning is done after that 

 should be done on the northeast side as the heaviest folinge 

 always grows there. In heading trees we frequently have to 

 form them from two or three leading branches, and there is dan- 

 ger of them splitting apart when they become large trees. 



Some of mine were so badly split that I had to keep them tird 

 together with ropes. To prevent this now, I cut scions, bevel 

 both ends, and with the point of my knife make an incision in 

 the bark and ingraft the scion from one of the leading limbs 

 to the other like the round of a ladder. Use grafting wax 

 the same as in ordinary way of grafting. These scions grow 

 very fast being fed from both ends. In two or three years they 

 become so large they can not be removed without the aid of a 

 saw or ax. 



VARIETIES. 



I have already said that my apples are mostly summer and 

 autumn varieties. Among them are Wealthy and Elgin Beauty, 

 but they have to be kept very close to a protection to keep life 

 in them. 



I hope soon to be able to get a supply of winter varieties from 

 among the 'New Eussians. I assure you that at my age, I do not 

 expect them from the seedling varieties to be originated. I will 

 here give a brief description of my grounds for fruit purposes. 

 I enclosed afield thirty by forty rods with a six board fence; a 

 part of it is level and the balance sloping toward the north. I 

 planted a row of white willows around it just inside of the fence. 

 A few years ago thinking that willows could be improved upon 

 for a windbreak, I grubbed them out on the south and west sides 

 and substituted Norway spruce and balsam fir. I planted 

 them eight feet apart, and mulched them we\l. They grew very 

 fast, some of them are now twenty-five or thirty feet high, and 

 their limbs lock together so closely as to almost bid defiance to 

 the winds. I have besides on the south side three rows of plum 

 trees. I divided this lot again into four equal lots by planting 

 Norway spruce and Scotch pine both ways across the centre. 

 The southwest fourth I use for small fruits and garden. The 

 other three- fourths I use for an apple orchard. Now, with all 

 this protection a large percentage of my apples blow off before 



