48 THE APPLE CULTURIST. 



the roots should be trimmed small enough to enable you to 

 plant them in the nursery-row with the spade. The sec- 

 ond year plant these yearlings in the nursery, the same as 

 the year before. Rows four feet, plants one foot apart in 

 the row, leaving an inch above ground. Sprout as before. 

 In the fall and during the winter, trim them to whips, leav- 

 ing only one straight shoot. The third year let them grow 

 as they may. In the fall and winter, trim them to whips 

 and top them at four feet. The fourth year, during sum- 

 mer, trim off any limbs that are too low on the trunk to be- 

 long to the head. In the autumn the trees will be ready to 

 transplant. Some nurserymen transplant their young trees 

 but once. Such a practice will produce young trees of fine 

 appearance ; but we do not recommend this mode of pro- 

 ducing an orchard. If we were to plant a hundred orchards, 

 the trees should never be produced in such a manner. Let 

 the seed be planted where the trees are to grow. We are 

 well aware that nurserymen will hoot at this, because it en- 

 dangers their business of selling trees. But such trees can 

 rarely be relied upon, any more than a herdsman can de- 

 pend on the veriest scrubs of neat cattle for superior ani- 

 mals, simply because they have not been bred according to 

 the requirements of vegetable physiology. This is the 

 most economical way to produce apple-trees to sell to peo- 

 ple who do not understand the difference between a valua- 

 ble, hardy, and prolific tree, and one that is worthless. Not 

 one-fourth part of the seeds from which the thousands of 

 fruit-trees in nurseries have sprung were any more fit for 

 producing valuable trees than the half-ripe and shrunken 

 kernels of wheat and other grain are suitable for choice 

 seed. 



The True Way to produce Fruit-trees. A beginner may 

 listen to the talk of those who have fruit-trees to sell ; and 

 yet, if he desires to obtain trees that will supply him with 



