THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



January, 1914 



Young Trees Girdled bjr Rabbits 



- Photo bv K S. Duncan. B.S.A.. Port Hope. Ont 



like seeds they cannot germinate unless 

 they get an abundance of moisture ; 

 hence if the days are bright and sunny 

 they will not grow but if rain falls and 

 does not dry off for about twelve or 

 eighteen hours they will germinate, and 

 begin to enter the leaves. Once the 

 fferm tube has worked through the skin 

 of the leaf it grows rapidly and forms 

 many little threads or rootlets as we 

 may call them. From these in a few days 

 a host of little threads burst up through 

 the skin and keep producing on their 

 tips crops of countless spores. These 

 are constantly being blown by the wind 

 from leaf to leaf and everywhere through- 

 out the orchard, and get also on the 

 stems of the young fruits, and on the 

 fruits themselves. Here, again, if given 

 sufficient moisture, they will germinate " 

 and produce scabby areas on all these 

 places. 



It is while the fruit and leaves are still 

 small that the fungus spreads most. 

 Once the fruit is three quarters of an 

 inch in size it is not nearly so subject to 

 attack. This is probably due to two rea- 

 sons : First, the skin has been growing 

 thicker and so is more difficult for the 

 fungus to penetrate. Second, the weath- 

 er is warmer and brighter, the nights are 

 shorter and so there is seldom a suffic- 

 iently prolonged period of moisture for 

 the spores to germinate. As to the time 

 necessary for this, I have had them in 

 the laboratory at a temperature of about 

 sixty degrees F. germinate in between 

 twelve and eighteen hours; at about fif- 

 ty degrees they were a little longer, and 

 outside at a temperature varying from a 



little below freezing to forty degrees F. 

 they had just begun to germinate in 

 forty-eifirhty hours. 



It is probable that the germ tube soon 

 enters the apple after beginning to grow. 

 Once it enters it cannot be killed by any 

 spray, hence spraying is to cover leaves 

 and fruit and prevent sf>ores from ger- 

 minating. From about the middle or 

 end of June until the last week in Aug- 

 ust there is seldom any noticeable in- 

 crease in the amount of scab, but with the 

 return of longer nights and lower tem- 

 peratures, if there -is an abundance of 

 continuous wet or foggy weather, as hap- 

 pened in the fall of 191 2, we may look 

 for a fresh outbreak of the disease, and 

 should spray to prevent it. The inky spot 

 or sooty fungus of the fruit is also favor- 

 ed by this kind of weather. Leaves are 

 apparently even more subject to this late 

 attack than the fruit and hence there are 

 always plenty of these diseased to carry 

 the fungus through the winter. 



Methods of Cultivation 



E. S. Archibald, WoUville, N. S. 



Mv experience with a part of my or- 

 chard for six or seven years in sod is 

 that it gave returns both in quantity and 

 quality equal to any other parts of the 

 orchard of same variety of trees (Grav- 

 ensteins.) I applied the same kinds and 

 Quantities of fertilizers as to the part of 

 the orchard that was cultivated, and 

 whatever grew on the ground I mowed 

 and left as a mulch. I am strongly in- 

 clined to put one-half of the older orchard 

 under this treatment from now on and 

 test it as against that of annual cultiva- 

 tion and cover crop. 



My feeling is that with heavy clay 

 land not well drained it would not be 

 good but with dry, gravelly or sandy 

 land it might be better than our present 

 method. The mowing of grass 01 weeds 

 and application of fertilizer will keep a 

 mulch that seems to suit the trees al' 

 right. I am not writing as an authority 

 on this matter but have noted for many 

 years trees that have no cultivation (in 

 orchards not my own) and found them 

 doing as well and sometimes better than 

 where cultivation was thorough. Of 

 course fertilizers of some kinds were an- 

 nually applied. 



T would not dare recommend sod cul- 

 ture as a general practice throughout the 

 Annapolis Valley, for many farmers 

 would rake up the grass mown and haul 

 it to the barn for winter feed without 

 putting anything back for mulch. I no- 

 tice an up-to-date neighbor orchardist 

 is treating his old orchard by alternate 

 plowing and clover. That is, one side 

 of the trees growing clover and the other 

 sid^ cultivated and clover sown for the 

 next year's growth. It means half rha 

 orchard cultivated one year and the other 

 half the next. This will enrich the 



A Young Tree in Mr. G. W. Neble'i Orcnara Mrappe 



with Tar Paper to Prerent Injar; b; Rabbits 

 —Photo by R. S. Duncan, BS.A.^Port Hope, Ont. 



ground, but is probably hard on the 

 feeding roots to be cut off the second 

 year. 



When to Prune 



When is the best season to prune fruit 

 trees?— W.L.K. 



A heavy pruning of either young or 

 old trees is conducive to wood growth, 

 rather than fruit bearing, no matter at 

 what season of the year the pruning is 

 done. A pinching back of the growing 

 shoots during the summer months is 

 conducive to fruit bearing. Care should 

 be taken not to pinch back too severe- 

 ly as severe heading in is equivalent to 

 pruning and stimulates wood growth. 

 If trees are making from twelve to 

 eighteen inches of terminal growth, one- 

 quarter or one-third of this may be tak- 

 en off. This heading in tends to pro- 

 duce short twigs or branches in the 

 centre of the top and with all fruits 

 which bear from spurs this is the first 

 requisite to fruitfulness. As a rule we 

 should not expect results from pruning 

 during the season when it is done, but 

 the following year at the earliest. The 

 German practice of bending the end of 

 the shoot back and twisting it around 

 the main branch lower down is probably 

 better than pinching, as it checks the 

 growth without removing the leaves. 



To induce fruitfulness in mature 



