APPLES. 99 
skoe are early, but of the Duchess of Oldenburg set the largest 
number. Wealthy and Walbridge are late keeping varieties. The 
list would not be complete without the Okabena, Peerless and a few 
Russians. 
Iam not so afraid of sun scald asI amof blight. Sun scald can 
be stopped, and the life of the tree prolonged, and it even will heal 
over. I have given blight a good deal of study, but as far as I have 
come is, if we have a good deal of rain in the spring we will havea 
good deal of blight in the summer. Also, if the trees are heavily set 
with fruit buds, the trees are weak, and the result is blight. 
Every man should know how to graft and have on hand a few trees 
to replace any trees that die. Ihave to replace trees every year. I 
have over 300 small trees that I intend to use myself. 
I am not discouraged. Wheat raising is a thing of the past, and 
grinding it into flour is going out of date. They have just found 
out that it pays best to feed it to hogs, and we must raise and eat 
apples. : 
Plums are the easiest to raise and still the most neglected fruit of 
all. The most of the farmers havea piece of ground called the barn- 
yard; its purpose is as a driveway from the house to the barn. A 
part of it is occupied with a wagon shed without sides or roof; in 
another part of it you find a pile of boards thrown in any shape; if 
you look around you will see a storehouse for worn-out machinery 
of all kinds; the rest of itis grown up with grassand weeds. The so- 
called barnyard could be cleaned up and laid out to driveways and 
groups of plum trees, having a road around and on most of the sides 
of the groves; and, especially, should there be a straight road from 
the house to the barn, soif any one should have to be called from 
the barn to the house, it would be possible that the person could be 
seen. One grove could be set out with three rows and three trees 
in a row, making nine trees. Another with two rows set V shaped 
with a tree between the two trees farthest apart, making six trees. 
A third can be set out in a circle with eight trees around and one in 
the center. A fourth grove can be set hit or miss, and wherever 
there is room for a tree or two set them if it does not interfere with 
driveways and the turning around with a team and wagon. The 
trees should not be set less than eight feet apart and twelve is better. 
Apple trees, I find, aré best set 16 by 16 feet and the ground planted 
to raspberries and blackberries at the same time. When the trees 
begin to bear the berries will have done their best; then the orchard 
should be seeded to grass, and the trees mulched. 
The plum trees should be procured in the fall, and, I think, would 
be better set in the fall. The trees should be bought from the nearest 
nursery, and, if not planted out in the fall, they should be heeled in 
and set out in the spring as early as possible, trimming all bruised 
roots. The kinds I would set most of would be Desota, Weaver and 
Forest Garden. There may be a few others that are good, but these 
three kinds will stand the most severe winter. I would set a few 
seedlings, or such as are called wild trees, for fertilizers. We often 
find some that are very good. 
