TJie Canadian Horticulturist. 



343 



thin or narrow belts, comprising but 

 a row or two, are usually preferable. 

 6. The best trees for wind-breaks 

 in the northeastern States are Norway 

 spruce, and Austrian and Scotch 

 pines, among the evergreens. 



Among deciduous trees most of the 

 rapidly growing native species are 

 useful. A mixed plantation, with the 

 hardiest and most vigorous decid- 

 uous trees on the windward, is prob- 

 ably the ideal artificial shelter belt. 



MANURING APPLE ORCHARDS. 



WHEN apple trees get into full 

 bearing, manure may be ap- 

 plied pretty freely without much 

 danger of making wood growth 

 rather than fruit. The paler green 

 of the leaves in bearing apple trees, 

 as compared with those not bearing, 

 shows the tax on vitality which fruit 

 production causes. It is probably in 

 case of most old trees the inability of 

 the roots to supply food for the pres- 

 ent crop, and anything besides that 

 prevents the formation of fruit buds 

 for a crop another year. In other 

 words, if the soil were made rich 

 enough a partial or full crop of fruit 

 might, accidents excepted, be looked 

 for every year. Some apple trees do 

 bear every season, but they are 

 chiefly of the summer varieties, that 

 mature early enough to allow time 

 for the production of fruit buds after- 

 wards. 



This is in most eastern localities 

 the off year for apples, and trees are 

 generally fruitless. But this fall is 

 for this very reason the best time to 

 manure these non-bearing apple orch- 

 ards. Fruit buds are now formed 

 which shall burst into blossoms next 

 spring. A dressing of manure 

 spread on the surface in the fall will 

 work its way through the soil by 

 rains and melting snows the coming 

 winter and spring. Nothing will or 

 can be lost, for apple tree roots go 

 down so deeply that leaching beyond 

 their reach is hardly possible. Not 

 only will the soil be enriched, but it 

 will also be kept moist by the mulch 

 into which the water will sink instead 



of running off over the surface, as it 

 may on clay soil exposed to beat- 

 ingrains. It is not merely nor chief- 

 ly under the trees that manure should 

 be spread. Apple roots extend very 

 widely, and in years ago in digging 

 an underdrain through a rich spot 

 we found roots from an apple tree 

 that grew fully four rods away. 

 Whether the roots extend as widely 

 in every direction we do not know. 

 Probably if not interfered with by 

 other trees they did. 



Stable manure is a complete fertil- 

 izer for crops that grow mainly to 

 leaf and stalk ; but it is not a full 

 manure for grain, and still less fot' 

 fruit trees. In natural fertile clay 

 soils the carbonic acid gas caused by 

 decaying manure in the soil makes 

 soluble some portions of the inert 

 potash which all clays contain. But 

 even here potash salts or hard-wood 

 ashes will be useful, while on sandy 

 or gravelly soils the addition of pot- 

 ash to stable manure is almost indis- 

 pensable. Without the potash the 

 manure will make the trees grow 

 more luxuriantly, but without fruit- 

 ing. Probably it will be as well to 

 postpone putting on the mineral fer- 

 tilizer until near spring, less from 

 fear that it would leach away, than 

 that it would combine with the soil 

 during the season when carbonic acid 

 gas is largely developed, and thus 

 become insoluble and useless. The 

 potash is most necessary for the fruit 

 at the time the seeds are being pro- 

 duced and the fruit is ripening. 

 Without potash, the change from the 



