STARTING THE ORCHARD 47 



some thrifty, healthy, comely growing variety, and 

 only the outer shell of the top need be of the fruit- 

 bearing sort. 



Another possible advantage of this double-working 

 lies in the opportunity to use selected scions. It is well 

 known that there are striking individual differences 

 among different trees of the same variety. Of two ad- 

 joining trees of the same variety in the same row one 

 will give brighter colored fruit than the other; one 

 will bear annually, while the other bears biennially; 

 or one will habitually yield twice as much as its 

 neighbor. It is generally believed that these differ- 

 ences can be reproduced by selecting grafts from the 

 best trees. The fruit grower, therefore, who develops 

 his orchard by the double-working process has the 

 opportunity to choose scions from specially productive 

 trees or from those which bear specially attractive 

 fruit. 



The varieties usually chosen for stocks when apple 

 trees are to be reworked in the orchard are Spy, Tol- 

 man, Duchess and McMahon. The last two are 

 particularly hardy and are used chiefly at the North 

 where the Russian Hibernal is also sometimes used. 

 Tolman is hard to buy in American nurseries, but is 

 one of the very best for this purpose. Spy makes too 

 large a tree and should be headed very low if it is to 

 be reworked, as double-working has a tendency to 

 make higher headed trees. Ben Davis is some- 

 times used, and has at least the advantage of being 

 always purchasable. 



