21 



REMEDY AFTER GETTING WRONG SORTS PLANTED 

 OR VARIETIES PLANTED ON WRONG ROOTS- 



We have elsewhere (under the heading " What to Do with Old 

 Orchards "-), explained the great importance of getting new varieties 

 into bearing age in the shortest possible time to test the value of 

 the variety in the district. Let us suppose that a certain planter 

 has set 1,000 trees in say ten different varieties in apple, pears and 

 peaches, and finds out when they have been three or four years 

 growing that several hundred trees are of varieties, quite un- 

 suited to the district in which he intends growing ; there 

 is no occasion to be despondent and feel sorry that he ever started 

 fruit growing ; these mistakes are the rule rather than the excep- 

 tion, and do not cause serious loss if tackled in the right manner 

 and in the proper spirit. We have ourselves already on our own 

 property re-worked over 1,500 of such trees, out of a total of 

 about 10.000. We know that some people faced with this problem 

 think there is only one way of rectifying things, by digging out 

 all the trees of the varieties doing badly, this is a very great 

 mistake and entirely unnecessary, provided that the trees are 

 growing healthily and that the stems are sound ; if these condi- 

 tions are there the variety must be changed over to one of the 

 other sorts that have been proved to do well, and there are two 

 ways of doing this, either by budding the tree over in the summer 

 or fall, the best time being when well-ripened buds of the required 

 variety are procurable and by grafting in spring. 



Personally we prefer the former methods and find it very suc- 

 cessful in this country for trees with limbs not above two inches 

 in diameter. The buds must be inserted at the several places on 

 the different limbs of the tree that the grafter thinks will make 

 the best shaped head ; it is a matter of judgment, only it is 

 advisable to insert more buds than are required ; in fact, with an 

 unskilled worker, we would suggest inserting twice as many buds 

 as will be required. We always consider the main point in working 

 over a tree is to keep the centre well open at time of working, 

 keep the buds or grafts well away from the centre of the head. 

 As a rule in budding over orchard trees the strings around the buds 

 are cut too soon, there is very little danger of leaving them too 

 long, as we will generally find the time of budding has to be 

 carefully arranged as soon as possible after the buds of the 

 required variety are ripe to enable the budder to find enough sap 

 in the trees to be re-worked to make a perfect union. 



The other manner of working over is by grafting, using the 

 same judgment in the matter of which limbs are retained for the 

 purpose. There are several ways of grafting : should the branches 

 be thin enough, that is under J inch, we infinitely prefer the whip 



