IN THE ORCHARD. 



241 



Does Not Believe in Low Topping 



JAMES C. HUGGARD^ WHITBY, ONT. 



THERE are a great many very useful 

 hints given in The Horticulturist, but 

 some features presented to your readers are, 

 to my mind, entirely misleading. One I 

 cannot agree with is the training of low 

 headed fruit trees. By low headed trees I 

 refer to those that branch out two to four 

 feet from the ground instead of four and a 

 half to ix feet. 



I would like to ask the advocates of low 

 heading where they obtain their prize sam- 

 ples of fruit, if not on the top branches? 

 As it is well known that cultivated orchards 

 yield a much greater return of first-class 

 fruit than an uncultivated orchard, I would 

 like to know how an orchard of say Green- 

 ings, Talman Sweet and many other varie- 

 ties of like habit of growth can be cultivated 

 where the trunk is only three feet high? 

 As a matter of fact, I have never seen well 

 colored fruit on low branches, nor yet the 

 best specimen of green or yellow varieties, 

 except invariably on the higher branches. 



A SERIOUS MISTAKE. 



Having been actively engaged for the 

 past 30 years in fruit growing, I have found 

 to my sorrow that to allow branches to form 

 less than 4 to 6 feet from the ground, ac- 

 cording to the variety planted, is a serious 

 mistake. The argument usually advanced 

 is that the low -leaued trees are easier to 

 pick, but this is in theory only, as a picker 

 will gather just as many baskets on a ladder 

 twelve to fifteen feet long as on one six feet 

 long. 



As to cultivation, it is simply impractical 

 to get the land cultivated near the trees 

 where the limbs are close to or lying on the 

 ground. I advise all fruit growers, there- 

 fore, to get good clean trunks while the 

 trees are young. They will not then be 

 under the necessity, later on, of cutting 

 branches 3 to 6 inches in diameter, as some 



orchardists are doings this year-, in order that 

 they may work among their trees. 



Another matter fruit men should attend 

 to at once is the planting of spruce for wind 

 breaks. They not only add to the beauty 

 of a farm or orchard, but add very material- 

 ly to the total crop of fruit by protecting che 

 trees from high winds in the fall. I cannot 

 too strongly recommend the planting of 

 spruce both xor ornament and use. I have 

 several hundrea spruce planted, some of 

 which have grown 40 feet high in 22 years 

 from seed. 



Trimming Apple Trees 



PROF. H. L. HUTT, OXT. AGRI. COLLEGE, 

 GUELPH. 



I would like to know the proper time of the 

 year to trim apple trees. Most of those pro- 

 fessing to be experts differ. I saw a statement 

 by one member of the fruit growers' associa- 

 tion who said, " prune when your knife is 

 sharp." When is the best time ? — (M. H. D. 

 Silver, Sutton, Ont. 



There is a great diversity of opinion in 

 regaid to the proper time for pruning trees, 

 which, in itself, shows there is considerable 

 latitude within which pruning may be done 

 safely. Light pruning may be done almost 

 any time of the year, but it is not well to 

 prune to any extent when the trees are m 

 foliage, nor is it well to prune heavily in the 

 fall after the foliage is off, as the wounds 

 are exposed to severe winter conditions be- 

 fore healing begins. 



The safest time to prune is early in the 

 spring after severe frosts are over. Wounds 

 made at this time heal rapidly. I had oc- 

 casion recently to visit an orchard near 

 Ingersoll which had been severely pruned 

 last fall before the leaves were entirely off 

 the trees. The result was that the sap in 

 the trees at that time was not properly 

 elaborated, and as a consequence it was 

 badly effected by severe winter freezing, so 

 much so that in some cases the bark this 

 spring peeled readily from the trunks of the 

 trees. 



