68 PROFITABLE FRUIT-GROWING. 



in its integrity confidence has been gained in their 

 consignments, and a great trade, creditable to them 

 but humiliating to us, established in our markets. 



Raising Apple Trees. The habit of raising 

 Apple trees from pips in cottage gardens, and grow- 

 ing the trees till they bear, must be abandoned. That 

 is the origin of thousands of worthless Apple trees. 

 Young trees may be raised in that way, but only 

 for stocks on which sorts of proved merit can be 

 grafted, But there are other kinds of stocks, 

 dwarf in growth and quick in flowering ; and when 

 small fruitful trees are wanted in the shortest time 

 they should be bought from nurseries ; they are 

 very cheap, in fact the cheapest of trees, and very 

 soon pay for the outlay. 



Stocks for Apples. These vary extremely, and 

 greatly influence the growth of the trees established 

 on them, also the crops of fruit. The same variety of 

 Apple was grafted at the same time, on different 

 stocks, and the trees grown together in the experi- 

 mental gardens of the Eoyal Horticultural Society. 

 The blossoms following were counted. At the end 

 of five years the tree on the French Paradise had 

 produced 460 blossoms ; on the Broad-leaved Para- 

 dise, 185 ; on the Crab, 23. But a tree may produce 

 too many blossoms when quite young, and become 

 stunted a mere toy. This is often the case with 



