142 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



June 



l0rtirttltural Departinent. 



EDITED BT P. BARRY. 



We have been struck with a few facts in regard to 

 the planting season just closed, that indicate, to some 

 extent, the changes that are taking place in the public 

 mind on certain points in fruit culture : and we think 

 it not amiss to take note of them now, while fresh in 

 our memory. 



The Jirst, is a remarkable falling off of the damand 

 for nnv varieties, especially among amateur cultiva- 

 tors. A few years ago — indeed, we need hardly go 

 hiither than a single year — a person having a small 

 lot of 50 by 100 feet to plant, would order a dozen 

 varieties of the newest, rarest, and most extraordinary 

 to be found noticed in all "the books.'' These he iimst 

 have; our good old sorts, with characters "beyond 

 suspicion," would not by any means answer his pur- 

 pose. He had just read an account of an extraordi- 

 nary "seedling cherry" produced by Mr. A., in one 

 part of the country ; a wonderful Seedling apple, by 

 Mr. B., in another ; a no less remarkable pear, by 

 Mr. C, somewhere else ; and an apricot and a plum 

 that, in spite of the cnrculio, bore extraordinary 

 crops, and out of the culture of which little fortunes 

 had actually been made. Tbese were just the arti- 

 cles for his garden, he thought, and he got them if 

 he could. This was something like the way people 

 were getting along in fruit tree planting, when vari- 

 ous pomological conventions were held, to which 

 planters everywhere looked for some advice in the 

 matter of selecting varieties. These conventions, it 

 will be remembered, recommended (or gnieral culti- 

 vation maitily the old, well known sorts, whose char- 

 acters were fully established. This at once changed 

 the current of taste among inexperienced planters. 

 Hence it is that we see in the nurseries here over 100 

 new or rare varieties of the pear, from which scarcely 

 a tree has b^-en dug, unless for a nurseryman or an 

 experimentalist, while for the old sorts of established 

 merit the demand has been quite equal to the supply. 

 This is as it should be. People who have small 

 gardens that they wish to stock with really choice 

 fruits for their own use, have no business with any 

 but well tested and generally approved varieties. 

 Neither should tliose who plant fruit gardens or 

 orchards for tlie supply of the market, meddle with 

 new or little known varieties. Nurserymen and 

 pomologists alone should cultivate and test these : 

 and it is their duty and a portion of their business to 

 do so. The conventions have therefore accomplished 

 gome good, we might say a great deal of good, in 

 this one simple particular, of recommending for gen- 



eral culture, varieties upon which nearly all the world 

 had pronounced a favorable verdict. 



The second fact we wish to note in reference to the 

 planting taste of the past season, is the unusual de- 

 mand for DWARF TRKES. A few years ago, nobody 

 sought for dwarf trees. Scarcely anybody knew of 

 such things. The tnll standard, with a bare trunk 

 of six or eight feet high, was the only form of trees 

 recognized for all sorts of circumstances. The little 

 village garden of 50 by 20, or the orchard of twenty 

 acres, were placed upon precisely the same footing 

 in this respect. The consequence was, that small 

 gardens were entirely unavailable to fruit culture 

 beyond a few gooseberry or currant bushes ; and 

 thousands and tens of thousands of our citizens in all 

 parts of the country, who will in a few years have 

 charming little gardens of dwarf trees, were quite 

 excluded from all the pleasure and profit which this 

 interesting culture cannot fail to yield. People every- 

 where in our cities and villages, who have but a small 

 lot of ground to cultivate, are very naturally delighted 

 with these trees so admirably adapted to their circum- 

 stances. Old people, too, who could not reasona- 

 bly hope to reap the fruits of standard trees that 

 never yield in less than six to ten years, are planting 

 dwarfs, because in two years at most they may gather 

 their fruits. Thus, two large classes of persons here- 

 tofore quite excluded from fruit culture, are now 

 brought in, and are in fact the most active. Whole 

 orchards, too, of these dwarf trees, pears in particular, 

 are'being planted for the growth of fruit for market ; 

 and when we consider that not one out of a hundred 

 will die in planting — that 300 to 500 may be put on 

 an acre of ground — and that in two or three years 

 at most they begin to bear — we do not see why they 

 will not be profitable. Many are also very judiciously 

 filling the spaces between standard pear and apple 

 trees, with pyramidal pear trees on quince stocks, 

 considering that at the end of twelve or fifteen years, 

 when their standard trees have attained good size 

 and have come into full bearing, and the dwarf trees 

 begin to be in the way, they can very well affiird to 

 cast them off. This system of managing orchards 

 is extensively practiced in France, where orchards 

 and fruit gardens are models for all the world. It 

 cannot but be highly advantageous in this country, 

 at least in all the older districts, where land is valu- 

 able and fruit growing an important pursuit. An 

 orchard of five acres, for example, will, at thirty feet 

 apart each way, c<mtain but 'J42 standard trees. — 

 Among these we can put in 72ii dwarf or pyramidal 

 trees at fifteen feet distance all around. Until the 

 eighth or tenth year, the standard trees will yield 

 nothing worth reckoning upon ; but from the third 

 or fourth year, the dwarfs will yield a considerable 

 income, and by the seventh or eighth year they will 

 produce not less than from $1 to $5 worth per tree. 

 When the standards require more ground, a jjart or 

 the whole of the others may be removed, ns the case 

 will re<iuire. This gives to pear orcharding a very 

 different aspect from that in which it usually appears, 

 by reducing the period at which the income begins, 

 nearly or (juiie ten years — equal to one-fourth the 

 time that any one now, upwards of twenty -one year.s 

 of age, can expect to live. 



The planting of standard trees of any sort in small 

 gardens, will unquestionably cease within a few 

 year';, as soon as people generally have accpiired a 

 little more information and experience in the differ- 

 ent departments of tree culture, and trees suitable for 



