CHAPTER IV 

 HOW TO RAISE A FRUIT TREE 



Let each pupil grow an apple tree this year and attempt 

 to make it the best in his neighborhood. In your attempt 

 suppose you try the following plan. In the fall take the 

 seed of an apple a crab is good and keep it in a cool 

 place during the winter. The simplest way to do this is 

 to bury it in damp sand. In the spring plant it in a rich, 

 loose soil. 



Great care must be taken of the young shoot as soon 

 as it appears above the ground. You want to make it 

 grow as tall and as straight as possible during this first 

 year of its life ; hence you should give it rich soil and 

 protect it from animals. Before the ground freezes in the 

 fall take up your young tree with the soil that was around 

 it and keep it all winter in a cool, damp place. 



Now it will not do when spring comes to set out your 

 carefully tended tree, for an apple tree from seed will not 

 be a tree like its parent, but will tend to resemble a more 

 distant ancestor. The distant ancestor that the young 

 apple tree is most likely to take after is the wild apple, 

 which is small, sour, and otherwise far inferior to the 

 fruit we wish to grow. It makes little difference, there- 

 fore, what kind of apple seed we plant, since in any event 

 we have no assurance that the tree grown from it will bear 

 a fruit worth having unless we force it to do so. 



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