1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 137 



fourths of the top which has been formed should be taken off. 

 We want perhaps four, or possibly five, branches to be main 

 branches of the tree. Let us take out everything else. Let 

 us not raise an indiscriminate top of tangled wood to be sorted 

 out after the branches grow, leaving large scars where rot will 

 commence, from which the trees will suffer. If we could 

 prune our young orchards, beginning at the start, taking out 

 everything superfluous, following it annually, never forget- 

 ting for a single year to take out everything which is not 

 needed, we should have shapely trees, no badly snarled speci- 

 mens, but trees that will go into bearing in perfect form and 

 in perfect condition, and we shall find that we have saved 

 time, and saved in every way by so doing. The trees will 

 commence to bear sooner, and bear more perfect fruit, and 

 the result will be more satisfactory to all copcerned. 



There are other points, but I will leave them to Secretary 

 Gold, who will speak of them from experience. [Applause.] 



Mr. T. S. Gold of Connecticut. What is one going to do 

 when the time is already exhausted before he begins, and 

 when, as inmy case, I have not done anything or thought of 

 anything but how to handle an apple crop for the last three 

 months ? You must excuse me if my remarks are entirely 

 in the way of reminiscences of my observations with regard 

 to the apple tree and its fruit. 



Now, with regard to the question whether we should culti- 

 vate orchards, and how long we should cultivate them, I do 

 not propose to speak ; but I want to call to your mind the 

 fjict that all the great bearers that you remember in every 

 town in the Commonwealth are trees that stand where they 

 have had by no possibility any culture from the time they 

 were planted. They are trees that stand in some rich, deep, 

 strong, fat corner of land, so protected by fences or other- 

 wise that they have had no culture. Their roots have 

 been allowed to run near the surface. Their growth and fer- 

 tility has been promoted by the droppings of the cattle, or 

 the natural setting towards them of the surface of the land. 

 You see old, magnificent trees that sometimes yield a hundred 

 bushels of fruit, and are alive and vigorous to their extreme 

 branches. This may enable you to form conclusions with 



