158 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



gently reconciling the seemingly con- 

 tradictory views of these practical men 1 



WHY APPLE TREES BLEED. 



A widening accumulation of facts 

 does, in all disputed questions, tend to- 

 wards the reconciliation of conflicting 

 opinions. In the thirteen years that I 

 lived in Kentucky I never saw an 

 apple tree " bleed," that is to say, I 

 never saw a flow of disorganized and 

 blackening sap from the stump of a 

 severed limb. In the first years of my 

 orcharding in Northern Vermont, this 

 so-called bleeding exhibited itself in 

 nearly every case where a limb of any 

 size was removed, no matter at what 

 season the operation was performed. 

 It was the most discouraging of my ex- 

 periences at that time, and I could not 

 understand it, or find a remedy for it. 



About fifteen years ago, at a session 

 of our State Board of Agriculture in 

 the Champlain Yalley, where this ques- 

 tion of pruning and subsequent bleed- 

 ing was discussed by many orchardists 

 of that orchard country, one of the 

 speakers dropped the casual remark 

 that he had never known an apple tree 

 that was not " black-hearted " to bleed, 

 no matter at what season it was 

 pruned. That thought was much more 

 fruitful to me than my orchard had 

 been up to that time, for all my trees 

 were black-hearted, except the Siberians 

 and Russians, which I at once remem- 

 bered never bled, no matter when they 

 were pruned. And at the same time 

 I remembered that apple trees are 

 never black-hearted in Kentucky. 



THE CAUSE OF BLACK-HEARTEDNESS. 



The state of black -heartedness in the 

 apple tree is unquestionably the result 

 of excessive winter's cold. In New 

 England a large proportion of the most 

 popular apples are grown upon trees 

 that are more or less black-hearted. 

 The Baldwin is always black-hearted 

 in Maine, New Hampshire and Ver- 



mont, and frequently so in the three 

 southern New England States. Along 

 its northern limit it can only be grown 

 when top-grafted on some hardier stock. 

 With me a Baldwin tree or graft has 

 never lived long enough to bear an apple. 

 Now if it be true that only black- 

 hearted trees bleed, then the experi- 

 ence of orchardists must vary according 

 to whether they are growing more 

 tender or more hardy sorts When I 

 began, though I planted the hardiest 

 known of New England sorts, yet al- 

 most all my trees became black-hearted 

 in a few years. Now that nearly all 

 of that class of trees have been up- 

 rooted from my orchard, and replaced 

 by the " iron-clads," I see almost no 

 bleeding, and when I do see it I know 

 the cause. I do grow a few sorts that 

 suffer some in this way (such as Fa- 

 meuse), because of the excellence of 

 their fruit. The Fameuse is with me 

 about as hardy as the Baldwin in the 

 upper Champlain Valley, and though 

 the trees are short lived in both cases, 

 they are planted because of the merits 

 of the fruit. 



WHEN TO PRUNE. 



In my experience it makes no differ- 

 ence at what season a black-hearted 

 tree is pruned, as regards the subse- 

 quent flow of disorganized sap, pro- 

 vided the limb severed is so large that 

 the stump will not quite or nearly heal 

 over in one season. This flow takes 

 place during the whole growing season, 

 and injures (often kills) the bark over 

 which it runs. A tender tree, subject 

 to black-heart, should be pruned very 

 sparingly. Branches not too large to 

 heal over in one season may be taken 

 off, and the best time to do this is in 

 June, as the sap is then too thick to 

 flow freely. But heavi/ pruning in 

 June is a severe shock to the tree, 

 even to the hardiest kinds, and almost 

 surely fatal to any tender sort. Fall 

 and winter pruning is also injuHous to 



