6o 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



of soil. As the plants grow during the sea- 

 son the furrows are gradually filled up by 

 cultivation. When winter sets in the as- 

 paragus is cut ofif and given a good cover- 

 ing of manure, which can be worked into 

 the ground the following season. 



Plans for Successful Fruit Growing 



CEASE GROWING SECOND CI^ASS FRUIT. 



NOT only should our Ontario fruit 

 growers cease shipping poor grades 

 of fruit, but they should cease to grow it. It 

 is a constant loss, because the trees occupy 

 valuable space in the orchard, takes valuable 

 time to gather and pack ; uses costly pack- 

 ages; costs as much as the best fruit for 

 transportation and sale ; brings down the 

 reputation of the grower in the market, and 

 lessens the net returns for his fruit crop. 



It is good advice, and often given, to make 

 some disposal of the poor fruit at home ; but 

 a better plan is to cease growing it alto- 

 gether. How shall this be done? Well, in 

 some degree the following hints will help 

 bring it about : 



/. Change your varieties. There are a 

 few kinds of apples that grow uniform in 

 size and color, and are not much subject to 

 scab. Select these for your district and 

 top-graft all poor varieties accordingly ; four 

 or five kinds of pears succeed and will bear 

 distant shipment, substitute them for the 

 , small kinds or the natural fruit ; a few varie- 

 ties of cherries and plums are not subject to 

 rot, and some grapes are scarcely ever af- 

 fected with mildew. Choose by all means 

 such varieties. 



//. Spray, Cultivate and Manure in the 

 best manner. Details of these are so often 

 ■written up that we pass them with the sim- 

 ple mention. 



///. Prune with an eye to reduce the 

 amount of weak and crowded wood over the 

 entire tree, beginning from the exterior and 

 working inwards. This work must be done 

 with more judgment and deliberation than 



has been customary. The amount of fruit 

 bearing surface will be thus decreased, leav- 

 ing, of course, the best and most vigorous 

 fruit buds. This will leave less wood to be 

 sprayed, less fruit to gather, and better fruit 

 for market. No saw should be necessary in 

 an orchard that is pruned annually with 

 pruning shears, but unfortunately this work 

 is frightfully neglected even in some of our 

 finest orchards. 



IV. Gather only the best fruit. With la- 

 bor so high priced, and fruit so low priced, 

 it does not pay to waste time. We have 

 been in the habit of gathering all our apples, 

 pears, cherries, plums, peaches, etc., in bas- 

 kets and boxes ; of bringing them all to the 

 packing house and turning them out on 

 packing tables for sorting. In many cases 

 we believe this could be done economically 

 in the orchard, leaving the scrubs on the 

 trees. In case of apples, these could after- 

 wards be shaken down for cider. 



V. Make successive pickings. In peaches, 

 successive pickings are customary already 

 because of the successive ripening of the 

 various samples; but there are good argu- 

 ments for extending the practice to many 

 other fruits if -a reputation for a uniform 

 high grade is desired. Red Astrachan ap- 

 ples, for example, do not color up all at once, 

 but beginning with the first week in August, 

 they continue during the whole month. At 

 Maplehurst we have an orchard of over one 

 hundred trees in full bearing, and get the 

 best results by going over the trees four or 

 five times, the pickers selecting each time 

 those in the pink of perfection for fancy 

 shipment. Were these all gathered at any 

 one time, either a large portion would be 

 very immature in case of early gatherirLg, or 

 an equally large portion would be over ripe 

 and fallen, in case of late gathering. This 

 same method we have adopted with our 

 Bartlett pears, making our first pickings 

 about the first of September and the last 

 about the 20th of the month. 



