2 6 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



large size, even six inches or more in diameter, can be dug, 

 all the roots cut back close to the body and tops to five or six 

 feet, and planted quite deep, just like a fence post, well ram- 

 med, and wire stretched, and every one of the trees named 

 will grow off quickly and make nice heads by fall, and large 

 trees the second season. Every orchard should have such a 

 windbreak around and through it at wide intervals. Not an 

 evergreen one, to keep off the cold, but a deciduous one, to 

 break the force of summer and fall winds, that every year 

 lash thousands of bushels of half grown and also ripe fruit 

 from the trees. I lost in a single storm, some years ago, over 

 two thousand bushels of pears, blown down in an hour and 

 buried in the mud. The cottonwood is by far the best of all 

 trees here for such a windbreak, as it grows very tall, and 

 will stand any storm, if grown from cuttings or root-pruned 

 trees. If care be taken to select cuttings from male trees, 

 the nuisance of seed and cotton will be avoided. I had at 

 Hitchcock two ten-acre orchards of Garber and Le Conte 

 pears, that were both bisected each way with cottonwood 

 when the pear trees were set, thus cutting each ten-acre lot 

 into four blocks of 2^ acres, surrounded now on all sides 

 with tall trees, that let in the breezes for comfort, but com- 

 pletely break the force of driving summer winds, that would 

 blow off the fruit. In fact, to plant an orchard without 

 proper protection is pure gambling, as the Missouri and 

 Arkansas growers found out last fall. Car load after car load 

 of windfall Ben Davis and other apples were shipped here 

 last October, that had been whipped off by a strong wind 

 storm that swept those states. While the roots of such a 

 windbreak would be objectionable on vegetable ground, they 

 do no harm at all to fruit trees, if occasionally fertilized, as is 

 clearly shown in my orchards. 



