APPLES. 285 



up with earth, and never taking them away until they fall away 

 themselves? 



Mr. Brand: I should say there was. 



Mr. Smith: This protection is to the body of the tree only? 



Mr. Brand: Yes, to the trunk. 



Mr. Murray: I would like to hear from Mr. Somerville on 

 the subject. 



Mr. Somerville: It would be a rather tedious job with as 

 many trees as I have, to box them in that way. But this gen- 

 tleman's idea is right in line with the true principles of raising 

 apples in Minnesota. Try and get the head as low as you can 

 get it and start the limbs low. I have a method of boxing 

 trees, that I think a good deal of, which simply consists in 

 taking about seven common plasterer's laths, sawing them the 

 height you want them, and then take some fine light wire and 

 weave it around those laths back and forth until you have a web 

 made of it, and then simply tie that around the tree. That 

 makes all the box I want, and gives a free circulation of air, 

 and keeps the rabbits and mice away from the bark, and keeps 

 the whifftetree of the wagon from taking the bark off the tree 

 when you are cultivating it. You can leave this around your 

 tree for a number of years, as it will stay there as long as that 

 wire will hold it on. It is a pretty tedious job, however, to go 

 over fifteen hundred trees in that shape, and I would rather 

 have trees that would stand without boxing. 



Mr. Connor. I believe if we grow trees with low heads, that 

 we won't need to box them. We shall derive a great deal of 

 benefit from following this system of growing our trees with 

 low heads. We have found it very successful in northern Iowa. 

 Very few varieties will stand the freezing and thawing and hot 

 sun of early spring time without becoming injured, and if we 

 grow our trees low, we will avoid all that trouble. 



Col. Stevens: I would like to ask, if boxing trees does not 

 protect them from the heat of the sun in the early spring, 

 when the trees are apt to suffer from a disease which I should 

 call sun- scald. I have always found it very desirable to pro- 

 tect the trunks of trees, not only from the sun but from the 

 cold. Hence, it is desirable that the branches should come 

 down as near to the surface of the ground as possible, for the 

 purpose of protecting the trunks of the trees. In that event, 

 I do not know that it would be necessary to box them, but, 

 otherwise, I think they should be protected 



