14:6 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMESTG. 



gest, therefore, that no apple-tree be allowed to ex- 

 ceed fifteen feet in hi-ght, nor to send a limb more 

 than eight feet from its trunk, and that trees be set 

 (diamond-fashion) twenty-four feet apart each way, 

 instead of thirty-two, as some of mine were. I judge 

 that the larger number of trees (72 per acre) will pro- 

 duce more fruit in the average than the larger but 

 fewer trees grown on squares of two by two rods to 

 each, that they will thrive and bear longer, and that 

 not one will be destroyed or seriously harmed by 

 winds where a dozen would if allowed to grow as 

 high and spread as far as they could. 



Every apple-tree should be pruned each year of 

 its life : that is, it should be carefully examined with 

 intent to prune if that be found necessary. It should 

 be pruned with a careful eye to giving it the proper 

 shape, which, from the point where it first forks up- 

 ward, should be that of a tea-cup, very nearly. I 

 have seen young trees so malformed that they could 

 rarely, if ever, bear fruit enough to render them profit- 

 able. And the pruning should be so carefully, judi- 

 ciously done from the outset that no wood two years 

 old should ever be cut away. With old, malformed, 

 diseased, worm-eaten, decaying trees, the best must 

 be done that can be ; but he who, pruning a tree that 

 he set and has hitherto cared for, finds himself ob- 

 liged to cut off a limb thicker than his thumb, may 

 justly suspect himself of lacking a mastery of the art 

 of fruit-growing. 



