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THE GENESEE FARMER. 285 



36nrtiriiltiirnl Dtprtmrat. 



CONDUCTED BY P. BARRY. 



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NOTES ON ORCHARDS AND ORCHARD FRUITS. 



There is, after all, nothing like experience. In rambling, the other day, over the 

 orchards of a gentleman who has for many years been engaged in fruit-culture for 

 market, we were very strongly impressed with the importance of making a judicious 

 selection of varieties. Selecting fruits to be grown for market is a totally different affair 

 from selecting for family use. In the oTchards referred to we observed some six or eight 

 trees of the Early Joe apple ; they were large beautiful trees, that had been top-grafted 

 some seven or eight years ago, and might bear at least five or six bushels each. Now, 

 the Early Joe is a delicious and beautiful little apple, and worthy a place among choice 

 summer apples for a family garden, but it is frequently spotted and knurly, and it has 

 not size enough to please the public eye in the market. It is a waste of time to carry 

 small fruits to market, however excellent they may be. When this gentleman grafted 

 so many trees of the Early Joe it had just been brought fairly to notice, and every one 

 who saw and tasted it admired its beauty and excellence ; it was thought that it might 

 take well in market, but experience has proved that a crojj of fair fruit is uncertain, and 

 that, at best, it can not compete with larger sorts, that would bear twice the quantity 

 of fruit. These trees are now about being grafted over. The Early Harvest and Red 

 Astracan are two early apples that must be profitable to grow, as both bear well, are 

 large, fair, handsome, and excellent. In the same orchard referred to, the Summer 

 Queen proves to be unprofitable ; it bears good crops, but the fruit is generally imper- 

 fect, and it comes in when peaches are abundant, and apples not in great demand. The 

 Early Strawberry, in the same orchard, rarely produces a good crop — the fruit blights 

 and falls immediately after it sets ; this, however must be owing to some local cause, 

 as it generally does exceedingly well in this section. We know one orchardist who has 

 a tree or two that yields him more annually than any other trees he has, and the dealer 

 who annually buys them has informed us that he can sell it more readily, and have 

 larger profits on it, than on any other variety of summer apple he can get. The Sweet 

 Bough was another variety we saw prettly largely planted. This, the gentleman 

 informed us, was a profitable variety — large, handsome, and always saleable, but he 

 said it was less valuable to him on account of ripening at the moment when his peach 

 crop usually required all his attention. We saw magnificent crops of Northern Spy 

 and Rhode Island Greening, and these, with the Baldwin, were found the most profita- 

 ble winter varieties in the orchard, Talman's Siveeting, we believe, was included ; we 

 saw fine crops of this. We must say further in regard to the Northern Spy, which has 

 been said to be unprofitable on account of producing so large a proportion of imperfect 

 fruit, that we have never seen a more uniform crop of smooth, beautiful fruit; they 

 were, however, not more than half grown, and just beginning to show faint touches of 

 red. This apple is remarkable for being later in putting forth its leaves, and blossoming 

 and setting its fruit than any other variety grown here in this section, resembling, in 

 this particular, the celebrated Rawles' Janet, of the south-we$t. This peculiar trait of 

 late flowering enables the Spy to escape injury from cold winds and frosts, that not 

 unfrequently prove fatal to other varieties, and, as the orchardist referred to remarked, 

 is a very strong recommendation in its favor for all localities subject to cold and change- 

 able spring weather. 



In managing such trees as the Northern Spy, whose habit is vigorous, erect, and 



