94 



doubtful if the orchard would pay for renovating. It must 

 be remembered that the trunk is the highway by which the 

 results of our imj)roved care are transported back and forth 

 from the roots to the top, and if this highway is in a demor- 

 alized condition we are not going to get the best results. 



2. The Stand of Trees. — This, of course, is supposing 

 that the trees to be treated are in an orchard, and it will 

 be easily seen that if half of the trees are out it is not going 

 to pay to cultivate and fertilize the whole of the land for 

 trees which could be put on half of it. And it is seldom satis- 

 factory to attempt to grow anything else in such vacant 

 spaces in an old orchard, nor to plant young trees in the 

 vacancies. If the '^trees are along fences or odd corners, so 

 that cultivation of the soil will not be atfempted, then the 

 question oi stand is less important, and P-^J, perhaps, be 

 ignored altogether^ But in an orchard there- ought to be a 

 three-quarters stand at least to make it worth while to take 

 the matter up, except under the most favorable circumstances. 



3. The Varieties in the Orchard. — This is of less im- 

 portance than the two points alreadj'' mentioned, yet it is a 

 factor that is decidedly worth considering and that has an 

 important bearing on the cost of the renovating process. It 

 is, of course, possible to graft over the trees, but this is both 

 an expensive and a lengthy operation, and I should condemn 

 an orchard to the brush heap which needed to be grafted far 

 more cfuickly than one which already had the right varieties 

 in it. Of course the question of varieties is very largely a 

 personal one, and need not be discussed here, but I should 

 mean by " right " such varieties as suited the grower and the 

 markets for which he was producing, preferably standard 

 sorts, like Baldwin, Rhode Island Greening and Roxbury 

 Busset. 



4. The San Jose Scale. — I should certainly feel much 

 less like attempting to recover an old orchard which was in- 

 fested with the scale, or even which was near an infested 

 orchard, than one which was free from it and in a locality 

 where it did not exist. I do not mean by this that I should 

 despair of recovering an orchard where the scale was fairly 



