XXV. 



MORE ABOUT APPLE-TREES. 



IN my opinion, Apple-trees, in most orchards, are 

 planted too for apart and allowed to grow taller and 

 spread their limbs more widely than is profitable. I 

 judge that a primer or picker should be able to reach 

 the topmost twig of any tree with a ten-foot pole, 

 and that no limb should be allowed to extend more 

 than eight feet from the trunk whence it springs. 

 Our Autumnal Equinox occurs before our Apples are 

 generally ripe for harvest, and, finding our best trees 

 bending under a heavy burden of fruit, its fierce gales 

 are apt to make bad work with trees as well as ap- 

 ples. The best tree I had, with several others, was 

 thus ruined by an equinoctial tempest a few years 

 since. Barren trees escape unharmed, while those 

 heavily laden with large fruit are wrenched and 

 twisted into fragments. And, even apart from this 

 peril, a hundred weight of fruit at or near the ex- 

 tremity of limbs which extend ten or twelve feet 

 horizontally from the trunk, tax and strain a tree 

 more than four times that weight growing within 

 four or five feet of the trunk, and on limbs that 

 maintain a semi-erect position. I diffidently sug- 

 7 (HS) 



