1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



203 



For the JScw Ettsland Farmer. 



CHOICE AND CULTURE OF APPLE 

 TREES. 



^Messrs. Editors : — As the season is fast ap- 

 proaching when most people purchase their trees 

 for transplanting, I venture to make a few state- 

 ments relative to my theories and practice in the 

 above line. 



Much credit is due to many enterprising indi- 

 viduals, who have subjected themselves to great 

 labor and expense in order to furnish the public 

 with a supply of good trees ; and, whilst this 

 just meed of praise is cheerfully bestowed where 

 it is deserved, no false delicacy will make me 

 forbear to give vent to my feelings of contempt 

 and indignation towards those nursery-men who — 

 not only in defiance of all law, both of God and 

 man, but in direct opposition to their own pe- 

 cuniai-y interests — have practised the grossest im- 

 positions on the ignorant and unwary. Justice, 

 however, demands it should be concluded that, in 

 many instances, where the fault has been charged 

 to the nursery-man, it really belongs to the one 

 Avho had the charge of setting out and subsequent 

 care of the trees. 



^luch as I admire a good nursery, with its 

 clean and well-cultivated rows, candor and truth 

 compels me to say that it is not the proper place 

 to look for the best trees. First, because they 

 generally stand much too thick ; second, because 

 their trunks have been entirely sheltered from the 

 sun, to which they must be inevitably, and, in 

 too many instances, fatally exposed ; third, be- 

 cause the soil in which they are thus far reared, 

 is often richer than that to which they are trans- 

 planted can possibly be made. If it were pos- 

 sible so to do by statute law, I would not lessen 

 the number of nurseries, but would rather in- 

 crease them. But if the process of depletion was 

 to be applied in accordance with my views, it 

 would be in the number of trees contained in a 

 row, which should be not more than fifty per 

 cent, of the number usually allowed to stand. 

 This statement is not intended to lessen the profits 

 of those engaged in this branch of business, but 

 rather to enhance them, as it an opinion, founded 

 on observation and experience, that one dollar is 

 not a high price for a good sized, thrifty apple tree. 



But liow shall I be able to select a good tree, 

 and how shall I test the correctness of your dia- 

 tribe against thick -set nurseries? says the in- 

 quirer of little experience in this matter. 



In regard to the selection of a good tree, let 

 the trunk be of as pyramidial form as possible, 

 the bark smooth and of a dark green color, the 

 top being well spread and divided into not less 

 than three branches. Examine the twigs of the 

 last year's growth, to see if they are not only of 

 proper length, but of good circumference, with a 

 gopd full bud at the ^top, and, all other things 

 being right, it is of but little consequence whether 

 the body is straight or crooked, 'although my 

 preferences are in favor of the crooked. 



As to the propriety of purchasing a tree from 

 a thick-set nursery, common sense teaches that it 

 is impossible for it to have a quantum sufficit of 

 roots, and those must possess but a feeble nature, 

 and wlio will answer for its trunk surviving the 

 heat of such a sun as that of 1854 ? It would be 

 tlie height of folly to hope for such a result, for, 



if the tree should not literally die, yet the sap 

 vessels would be so hardened and cramped by the 

 heat, as to render it impossible for tlie sap to 

 flow in sufiicient quantities to give the top its 

 needed support ; consequently, the limbs become 

 stinted, and fail of having that healthy appear- 

 ance which so easily distinguishes a well culti- 

 vated tree. 



The sap which is thus obstructed, like a water- 

 course must find outlet somewhere, which it ac- 

 complishes by sending out numeroiis shouts at 

 the bottom ot the tree, sometimes from below the 

 surface of the ground, which with me, in many 

 instances, it is impossible to kill by fi-equent cut- 

 ting, as the more I perform this operation, the 

 more is their name legion. To more fully sub- 

 stantiate the correctness of this theory, let us 

 follow nature in her training of the "wild apple 

 tree of the wood." 



First, the seed of the apple germinates and 

 shows itself two or three feet above the ground 

 before the cattle think it worthy of their atten- 

 tion to browse, when, for a number of years, a 

 kind of running contest is kept up between them as 

 to who shall obtain the mastery, which general;y 

 results in the tree, shrub-like, increasing in width 

 to such a degree that it is impossible for its foe 

 to reach the shoot, which is now ascending from 

 the centre, and which soon forms a respectalJe 

 top. The owner, making the discovery that it 

 will grow in spite of beast's browsing and man's 

 neglect, in the course of a few years cuts awiiy 

 the now useless shrubs and sprouts on and 

 around its body, and finds that he has a tree as 

 hardy as the most sturdy oak, with which a tree 

 from a crowded nursery bear about as favorable 

 comparison to as would a ^lilk street clerk with 

 a down-east lumber-man. 



A tree whose body can alwaj-s be protected 

 from the rays of the sun, will invariably be much 

 more thrifty and prolific than one otherwise ex- 

 posed. I would recommend to those who are 

 about setting out trees, to let them incline to the 

 southwest about two degrees, from a perpendic- 

 uhir position, as a protection to their bodies from 

 the direct ra3-s of the sun. In ten years the dif- 

 ference in perpendicular appearance will not l^e 

 perceptible. 



Should any suckers come out on the bodies of 

 trees newly transplanted, cherish tlicm with all 

 possible care, as where two or more are alluvred 

 to grow up and down the trunk, I have never 

 known it to perish l)y sun-blight. The second 

 spring these may be headed in one-half, and the 

 third entirely removed. Excepting this for the 

 first four or five years, if you are tempted to use 

 your jack-knife about them, throw it into the 

 river immediately, that you may bo delivered 

 from evil. Pro Boxo Publico. 



N. Bridgewater, Feb. 3, 1855. 



Preserving Floir and Meal. — The patented 

 plan of Thomas Pearsall, of Hooper's Valley, N. 

 Y., for preserving flour, meal and grain, from 

 heating and souring, by having an open pipe run- 

 ning through the centre of a barrel of flour and 

 meal, or a number of such tubes in bins of grain, 

 wc have tested and found to be an excellent inven- 

 tion. A l)arrel of Indian corn meal put up in 

 May last, with one of his refrigerating tubes, ia 

 now as sweet as it was on the day it was packed. 



