put two, 'cause somethin' might happen to one. 

 They break off in ice storms sometimes. And I 

 always put 'em one above the other 'cause I 

 figured it's better and stronger that way. You 

 whittle off one side the scion and stick it in the 

 crack you've made with your knife in such a 

 way that the live bark on the scion presses up 

 against the live bark on the tree. And then you 

 hold the scion in place with wax. Then you cut 

 off all the limbs below the one that you've 

 grafted. The sap has to go somewheres. And 

 when it finds that the limbs have been cut off, 

 and they ain't no place to go, except into the 

 bark of the scions, that's where it goes. You've 

 got to figger not to cut too many limbs off, 

 though. For if thej^s more sap than can get into 

 the scion and make it grow, it'll leak out under 

 the w£ix and rot the scion off. I generally left the 

 top of the tree pretty much alone until I found 

 out how the scions were doing. If they were 

 growing all right, I'd cut the top off then. 



Lot of people put on two scions the way I 

 done. But when them both growed they let 'em 

 grow together. That makes a crotch. And a 

 crotch ain't strong. I always cut off one scion 

 just before they growed together. And the bark 

 would grow over the place and make a smooth 

 branch. 



Once, I grafted a whole tree. And that tree 

 stood up through the hurricane, too. Yer see, 

 when a crust comes on the snow, or anjrthing 

 happens so the mice can't hunt, you're supposed 

 to go around the orchard tromping down the 

 snow around the trees. You tromp it down hard 

 right around the trunk, and the mice won't get 

 to the bark. But I missed this tree someways. 

 Or the mouse, maybe, was a wood rat. Anyway, 

 it ett the bark all the way 'round. It was a good 

 tree. Had good roots, and as it would die if I 

 didn't do something about it, I thought I better 

 try. I cut the trunk of the tree off and put scions 

 all the way 'round in the bark. Enough of 'em 

 grew so I managed to raise a tree. I told the 

 feller who owns the place about it, and he found 

 it hard to believe for it don't look no different 

 than any other tree to him. 



Lots of people insist on growing an orchard 

 from nursery stock, that's all right if you want 

 to wait ten or fifteen years for a crop. But if you 



want your trees to begin bearing in three-four 

 years you want to graft a few scions on to a full 

 grown tree. If you take your scions from a tree 

 that has apples you like, you can be sure that 

 you'll get the same flavor apple when the scions 

 begin to bear. But when you buy from a nursery 

 you got to wait ten or twelve years to find out if 

 you got what you paid for. 'Course, the/s some 

 crook nursery men, I s'pose, but they ain't 

 many. It's the agent who's the crook. And it's a 

 pretty good game when a feller don't know he's 

 been gypped until ten-twelve years. By that 

 time the agent ain't no longer in the employ of 

 the company, probably. And if he was, nobody 

 would know who made the mistake and the 

 whole thing be outlawed so's you couldn't get it 

 into court. I don't say that a good nursery 

 wouldn't be awful sorry it happened and make 

 good, too. But the way they'd make good would 

 be to give you some guaranteed new trees that 

 you could wait for to bear for another ten- 

 twelve years. 



When Doc Brown and his brother first come 

 they lived in houses side by side. And they 

 planted the two back lots for an orchard. I told 

 the Doc that this wasn't a good place to raise 

 apples, but the Doc said, "No, no," I was wrong. 

 That he'd had the soil analyzed down at the 

 State College. And that they said it was good 

 soil and all right. "All right, Mister" I says. 

 "Now you take out your little book and you 

 write down what I'm going to tell yer. So's you 

 won't forget it, I says. But you see more money 

 when you took out your pocketbook to pay for 

 them trees than you'll ever see coming back into 

 it from your orchard." But, oh no, I was wrong. 



"What kind of trees be they," I wanted to 

 know. "Baldwins," he says. And it seemed he 

 had paid an extry price to get some real good 

 trees. 



I see they wan't no use talking to him and 

 trjdng to help him so I forgot about it 'til several 

 years had gone by when I saw him and his 

 brother working in the orchard. You know, 

 they's a pest of borers that bores holes in the 

 trunks of apple trees right above the ground, 

 and if you're quick enough you can ram a wire 

 in and either kill the borer, or fish him out, but 

 if he's bored 'round a bend or two, you are out of 



24 



Fruit Notes, volume 62 (Number 2), Spring, 1997 



