HOW TO GROW APPLES. 



VALUABLE HINTS ON THE PLANTING OF ORCHARDS BY MR. R. W. SHEPHERD. 



THE summer meeting of the Pro- 

 vincial Fruit Growers' Society, 

 held at Stanstead Plain, was 

 brought to a close on the i8th 

 of August. At the evening session Mr. 

 R. W. Shepherd, the well known pomol- 

 ogist of Como, read a paper on the 

 planting of orchards, in the course of 

 which he said : — 



In the " good old days " of planting 

 orchards in Quebec province it was 

 thought proper to set the rows of trees 

 only twenty or twenty-five feet apart. 

 There are, in fact, few orchards of fifty 

 years of age where the trees were planted 

 at greater distances than twenty-five feet 

 apart. The result of this mistake has 

 been to produce orchards in which, as 

 the trees grew, completely shaded the 

 ground, they mterlaced their branches 

 with one another and became unfruitful, 

 bearing fruit of small size and imper- 

 fectly colored. To mend matters the 

 orchardist starts out to prune his trees, 

 with an axe and saw, slashing and cut- 

 ting right and left large branches in 

 order to admit some light and air, the 

 most necessary adjuncts to successful 

 orcharding. All this work of slashing 

 and cutting of branches is the result of 

 the intense desire to plant out as many 

 trees as possible to the acre — another 

 proof of the shortsightedness and avari- 

 ciousness of human nature. In this 

 enlightened age, do not let us repeat the 

 mistakes of our grandfathers. Let us 

 understand first that an apple tree must 

 have 



PLENTY OF AIR AND SUNLIGHT 



to produce perfect and well colored fruit. 

 A tree of forty or fifty years of age stand- 

 iii^; in the open, in good, well cultivated 

 s ill, will bear as fine specimens of fruit 



as a tree fifteen years old. It i.i a com- 

 mon idea that the finest specimens of 

 apples are grown on young trees ; but 

 give the old trees the same sunlight and 

 air, with like cultivation and nourish- 

 ment to the soil in which its far-spread- 

 ing rootlets permeate, and you will see 

 equally fine specimens of fruit. 



In this age of necessary spraying of 

 trees and thorough working among them, 

 it is absolutely imperative that the new 

 orchard trees be planted at greater dis- 

 tances apart than heretofore. Everyone 

 who has tried to spray an old orchard 

 knows how laborious the work is, and, 

 generally, how imperfectly it is accom- 

 plished. In two orchards that I planted 

 recently at Como, we set the trees thirty- 

 three feet apart each way, i. e , thirty- 

 three feet in the rows, and the same 

 between the rows. I believe that for 

 such varieties as St. Lawrence, Winter 

 St. Lawrence, Canada Baldwin and 

 others, even forty feet apart would be 

 preferable. 



FALL PLANTING. 



There has been considerable differ- 

 ence of opinion as to the proper season 

 to plant apple trees, whether in the 

 spring or the fall. I have had good re- 

 sults with either. Let me give you the 

 result of my efforts last fall and last 

 spring. We all know, to our cost many 

 of us, what a very severe winter the past 

 one was to many old as well as young 

 trees. Therefore, the planting of an 

 orchard last fall was attended with con- 

 siderable risk. About the first of No- 

 vember last, we planted one hundred 

 and twenty-six trees of the following 

 varieties : Fameuse, Mcintosh Red, 

 Rochelle, ("anada Red, Scott's Winter. 

 The soil had been well ploughed and 



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