STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 45- 



The Northern Spy is the worst tree we have for getting a hand- 

 some top but I have as good formed trees of the Northern S^y by 

 paying attention to it, as from the Baldwin and Greening. I trim 

 my trees twice a year, as much as I comb my head every day. 



I have come to the condusion that October or November is the 

 best time to trim trees. If you trim a tree in the fall, you want to 

 go through in March and take off every sprout and they will soon 

 begin to show no signs of sprouting ; but in the spring you will have 

 sprouts. 



I have only a few leading kinds ; these are Greenings and Northern 

 Spys. ff you have a great many kinds, you cannot use your apples 

 so well as if you had only a few kinds. 



There were two things I got beaten on ; the first thing was the 

 caterpillar. I saw in the papers about putting factory cloth around 

 the tree and tar it. I went to work on a hundred trees, not knowing 

 the result. I saw the leaves began to decay and out of that effort 

 I lost forty trees. I learned something. The next thing is to take 

 care of the caterpillars. Next month is a good time. I have a pole 

 sixteen or eighteen feet long with a knife at the end. I have a 

 colored glass, which is a magnifying glass, that enables me to see 

 ever}' place around the limbs where the eggs are and I can get them 

 off rapidly. I take them before they are hatched out and don't 

 have much trouble with the caterpillars. This book knowledge is 

 worth a good deal, but I never saw a good farmer with book know- 

 ledge and no experience. The most take these things and experi- 

 ment, and when we touch the right thing, hang to it. I am glad 

 these college fellows are giving us some things, but we old men who 

 have fought trees and mosquitoes know what it means. 



Prof. MuNSON. Mr. Walker says our knowledge must come by 

 experimenting. I agree with him that we can form the tops of trees 

 in any desired shape ; but perhaps I don't make myself clear. We 

 should not try to give the Northern Spy the same form as the 

 Greening. With your Spys 3^ou train from the center ; with Green- 

 ings you train from the outside in. You have a different picture for 

 the Spys in mind, than with the Greenings. The natural habits of 

 the tree must be borne in mind in pruning. 



With regard to the caterpillar I would recommend putting a band 

 of cotton cloth around the tree. The codling moth is often con- 

 founded with the canker worm. The first flies and the other crawls 

 up the tree. 



