246 



TJie Ciiuadian Horticuitui ist. 



It is a great deal of trouble to 

 gather a crop of apples in this 

 way, and to do it on a large scale 

 requires constant attention. Sum- 

 mer apples would not pay the farmer, 

 for they need harvesting just when 

 he is busy with farm crops. Just 

 now, for example, (Aug. 13th) a part 

 of our force has to be detached to 

 harvest a field of oats, and that means 

 a waste of pears and apples that are 

 now ripening, and in most seasons, 

 it would be of peaches also. An 



APPLE-PICKER 



is a useful tool in gathering the first 

 ripe apples and peaches, very often 

 saving the use of a ladder where it 

 would otherwise need to be set up 

 and climbed for a single specimen in 

 a place. We use the apple-picker 

 described on page 283 of volume ix, 

 but a device that will answer the 

 purpose, may be easily made at home 

 on a rainy day at a trifling expense. 

 We noticed a description of one in 

 the Kansas Fanner, by Wm. C. Cole- 

 man, which we give for the benefit 

 of any one of our readers who may 

 desire to have a home-made one : — 



Take a hard-wood board one inch thick, 

 mark on it a circle seven and one-half inches 

 in diameter, inside of this draw another circle 

 six inches in diameter, between the two circle> 

 bore one-fourth inch holes one and one-half 

 inches apart, cut the wood away from the 

 outside circle, and you have the back of the 

 apple-picker. Next, make enough round, hard- 

 wood pegs, six inches long, to till the holes. 

 Before driving in the pegs fasten the handle 

 to the back. The handle should be a light 

 strong pole, six or eight feet long. Now diive 

 in the pegs or teeth, be careful not to drive too 

 hard and split the back. 



When it is finished it looks so simple that 

 you wonder you hadn't thought of it long ago. 

 With it you can pick the choicest apples, which 

 always grow on the top branches, without 

 bruising ; and instead of standing on a ladder 

 all day you can pick most of your apples from 

 the ground. 



TRE.-\TMENT OF THE RASPBERRY 

 PLANTATION. 



Many of our fruit growers neglect 

 to cut out the old canes of their rasp- 

 berry and blackberry bushes until 

 the spring after they have fruited, 

 either from neglect or because of 

 a notion that they afford some pro- 

 tection to the young canes. The 

 only possible use in this respect, 

 which they can serve, is in helping 

 to gather snow banks about them, 

 a very mefhcient means of securing 

 winter protection. If in a place 

 where it is necessary to protect them, 

 some better method should be 

 adopted than that of leaving a mass 

 of ugly, straggling brush standing in 

 the rows, impeding the growth of the 

 young shoots and spoiling the whole 

 appearance of the plantation. 



To this we will refer in a future 

 number ; and in the meantime ad- 

 vise our readers, if they have not 

 alreadv done so, to make no delay in 

 cutting out the old canes, and in 

 thinning out the new ones to three 

 or four from each stool ; for this will 

 allow all the strength to go to the 

 development of the bearing canes for 

 the next )'ear, and give more room 

 for their proper development. 



Some of the small fruit growers at 

 Grimsby have just completed the 

 task of clearing up their plantations 

 in this way, and the better condition 

 for growth and fruit bearing strikes 

 even the least observant passer-by. 



Where the canes were shortened 

 back in the month of July, it will 

 now be in order to cut back the side 

 shoots, especially of the blackberr}- 

 bushes ; for the greater number of 

 fruit buds that we can grow near the 



