THE GENESEE FARMER. 



59 



Use position. Although he did not believe m forming 

 leads as low as some, he was equally opposed to having 

 leads as hi^h as some have described, and as is often seen 

 But the heads should be formed so high as to admit of 

 lorse work under the trees-say hve feet when planted. 

 Farmers cannot use forks and spades in cultivating their 

 jrchards-they must depend upon horses. Any plowman 

 knows enough not to let the plow rip up the roots. . 



J J Thomas had made a good deal of observation in 

 the'length of roots. The radius of the roots is equal to 

 the height of the tree. If the tree is twenty feet 111 height 

 the roots will extend twenty feet from the trunk in every 

 direction. Mr. T. inquired if any one had ever known 

 injury to result from plowing an orchard? The tearing 

 of the roots a little, he thought, not so injurious as neg- 

 lecting to stir the soil. Apple roots, many of them, go 

 down low, but peach roots lie near the surface. 



Dr Sylvester said it is necessarv to shade the trunks 

 of tree* and it is also necessaay to keep the tree growing 

 to obtain good fruit. To effect this, it is necessary to 

 keep the ground well cultivated, ^and it is hard to do this 

 if the head is formed very low. 



Mr Sharp is determined to head his trees low, and has 

 a pair of small mules for working under them, and when 

 the trees are too low for these, will try a pair of asses. 



To get at the opinion of the Society, the members were 

 requested to prepare a list of the varieties which they 

 considered most desirable. There were — votes cast, with 

 the following aggregate result : 



BEST SIX SUMMEB VARIETIES— TWO 8WBET. 



Rpd Astrachan 12 Summer Pearmain 2 



Primate 10 Early Joe 3 



Early Harvest & Lowell 1 



Early Strawb. Try S Benoni 8 



Keswick Codliu 2 Sweet Bough 12 



Summer Rose 5 Golden Sweet 8 



BEST SIX AUTUMN VAEIETIKS— TWO SWEET. 



Munson Sweet 7 



Fall Jenetting 1 



Twenty Ounce Pippin 1 



Pumpkin Sweet, 1 



Maiden's Blush 1 



Fall Pippin 2 



Sylvester 1 



Colvert 2 



Twenty Ounce 10 



Gravenstein 9 



Duchess of Oldenburgh. ... 7 



Porter 7 



Jeffries 3 



Pomme Royal 3 



Beauty of Kent 2 



BEST TWELVE WINTER VARIETIES— TWO BWEET. 



Rhode Island Greening 13 Smith's Cider 1 



Tompkins Co. King 12 Norton's Melon 1 



Northern Spy 12 Canada Reinette 2 



Baldwin 12 



Spitzenburg » 



Golden Kusset .. 8 



Roxbury Russet 7 



Peck's Pleasnnt 7 



Yellow Bellflower 5 



Pomme Grise 4 



Canada Red 5 



Swaar . 6 



Red Cheek Pippin 3 



Wagener 6 



Belmont 2 



Fameuse 7 



Rambo 5 



Vandervere 1 



Minister 1 



Blue Pearmain 1 



Eawle's Janet 6 



Tolman Sweet 14 



Seek-no-further 2 



Green Sweet 8 



Ladies' Sweet 5 



Cooper's Mnrket 2 



Cranberry Pippin 1 



Ribston Pippin 1 



Bailey Sweet 3 



Jersey Sweet 3 



Pound Sweet 1 



Hill Sweet 1 



Pomme d'Or 2 



Jonathan 1 



Mother 2 



BEST TIME FOR PRUNING. 



Mr.' Huntington said that in his early days he grafted a 

 great many thousand trees, and had to take off many large 

 limbs. In many orchards large limbs had been taken off 

 bv the ax previously, and he always noticed that limbs re- 

 moved in the winter or early in the spring healed badly, 

 often causing rot; while those taken off when the leaves 

 were out healed rapidly, forming a lip of bark around the 

 wound, and apparently without injury to the tree. 



Mr. Ellwangee had found the latter part of winter the 

 best time to prune. The wound then becomes calloused, 

 and there is no bleeding; but later in the season, when 

 the buds begin to swell, if limbs are removed, bleeding 

 often results and the wood becomes injured and often rots. 

 If the trees are pruned when in leaf, growth is arrested 

 for the season. 



Mr. Fish agreed with the previous speaker, and recom- 

 mended pruning in the winter. 



Mr. Sharp, the year before last, trimmed a pear orchard 



early, and got a good growth. Last year a part wa3 

 trimmed early and a part late, and that pruned late made 

 but little growth during the summer. 



H. N. Lvngworthy had found that pruning pear trees 

 when growing always checks and often stops growth alto- 

 gether. If large limbs are taken off old trees about the 

 first of April, bleeding ensues and the wood decays; but 

 if done in April, the wood seasons before the sap moves, 

 and remains sound. 



Mr. Hooker agreed with Mr. Langwokthy and Mr. Ell- 

 wanger, and thought the best time for removing trees was 

 the present, or about the middle ot winter. 



CULTURE OF STRAWBERRIES. 

 Mr. Barry here announced that the Rev. J. Knox, of 

 Pittsburgh, was in attendance, and he moved that the So- 

 ciety request him to favor them with an address. 



Mr. K. has a farm of some 200 acres devoted to the cul- 

 ture of fruit. He is well known throughout the United 

 States as a most successful cultivator of strawberries, oc- 

 cupying about fiftY acres with this fruit alone. 



By a unanimous vote of the Soctety, Mr. K. was re- 

 quested to favor the meeting with his experience. 



Mr. Knox then gave a very able and lucid statement of 

 his method of cultivating strawberries. He thought a 

 rather light loam— whet might be termed a wheat soil — 

 preferable to a sandy soil for the growth of strawberries. 

 Any soil, however, that would produce wheat or corn 

 would produce strawberries. It was not necessary to 

 make the soil very rich. He had some parts of his plan- 

 tation where strawberries were set out on land plowed in 

 the ordinary way, about eight inches deep, and the plants 

 succeeded well. He preferred, however, to subsoil some 

 eighteen or twenty inches deep, breaking up the subsoil 

 without bringing it to the surface. The plants on this 

 thoroughly pulverized and subsoiled land produced crofs 

 for ten or twelve years in succession without replanting in 

 anyway! He cuts off the runners as fast as they are 

 formed. Plants in rows thirty inches apart, and the 

 plants ten inches apart in the rows, making twenty thou- 

 sand plants to the acre. Prefers setting out early in the 

 spring. When he commenced strawberry culture, Mr. K. 

 plowed between the rows, but latterly has discarded all 

 implements in his strawberry plantations, except the hoe. 

 Weeds are taken out by hand. The less soil is disturbed 

 after planting the better, as the whole ground is covered 

 •with a net-work of small, fibrous roots. IN ever allows tho 

 vines to bear the first year planted, but picks off all the 

 fruit-stems and runners. Protects the plants in winter by 

 wheat or rye straw, put on in November. Oat straw is 

 not heavy enough, and blows off. Plants bear much bet- 

 ter for this protection. It also serves for a mulch in sum- 

 mer, and keeps the fruit from being soiled by the ground. 

 One-half the straw is wasted each year, and needs to be 

 supplied every autumn. Two tons to the acre is about 

 the right quantity of straw to commence with, but after 

 that, one ton of new straw each season will answer. 



Varieties that succeed in some soils and situations fail 

 in others. The Hovey is good in Boston, and Mr. K. had 

 seen it good in Cleveland, but with him it never succeeded, 

 no matter how cultivated. Some varietiess seem to run 

 out after culture a number of years. Pistillate vasneties 

 seem to do better when impregnated with some staminate 

 sorts, than with others. On this subject he is trying ex- 

 periments. The strawberry season ought to be length- 

 ened It is usually about three weeks, but with proper 

 selection of sorts may be extended to five weeks. The 

 sorts Mr. K. liked best were the following : 

 Early— Baltimore Scarlet, Jenny Lind, Burr's New Pine. 

 Late— Trollope's Victoria, Kitley's Gohah, Nimrod, 

 Buist's Prize. 



Medium— Brighton Pine, Boston Pine, McAvoy s Supe- 

 rior, Scott's Seedling, Moyameusing, Downer's Prolific, 

 Fillmore. Golden Seeded, British Queen, Vicomtesse Heri- 

 cart de Thury, Wilson's Albany, Triomphe de Gand. 



For a general crop, Wilson's Albany and Triomphe de 

 Gand are the most profitable. The "latter is the straw- 

 berrv of all strawberries, and possesses all the excellen- 

 cies "that can be desired— productive, beautiful, large, of 

 fine quality, berries shipping well and the plants are 

 hardy. It "is not as productive a3 the Wilson, but an aero 



