THE APPLE. 65 



what they are, as the fruit is never allowed to get more than 

 half grown before it is carried off by the public. If the 

 suitability of the valleys of the interior of Texas for apple 

 culture is to be judged by the way those trees have done for 

 many years, certainly the fruit-growers of our state are mak- 

 ing a great mistake in neglecting to plant extensive orchards 

 of this staple and most profitable of all fruits on some of the 

 rich bottom lands now given entirely to corn and cotton. 



But whatever our southern brethren do, the fruit-growers 

 of the apple states will make no mistake to begin now to set 

 close root-pruned apple trees. The orchards of the last de- 

 cade or more have all been planted with large, long-rooted 

 trees, and no amount of cultivation or care will prolong their 

 usefulness over twelve or fifteen years. It takes but a few 

 full crops to break down trees the bulk of whose roots are in 

 the upper twelve inches of the soil, and the man who selects 

 the best varieties now, root-prunes closely, plants in small 

 holes, rams tight, cultivates well for a few years, and then 

 puts down to Bermuda, blue grass, or other sod, and pastures 

 or mows it, not forgetting to top-dress well around the trees 

 each year with some good fertilizer, will, if his trees are prop- 

 agated from productive, bearing ones, begin in four or five 

 years to reap a rich harvest, and have an orchard that will 

 long outlive him, and be the safest legacy he can leave his 

 children. As to all the talk about the old, choice varieties of 

 winter apples running out, it may be set down as talk and 

 nothing else. They have been run out by the persistent 

 persecution they have been subjected to, in the form of trees 

 used, and the continual cutting of their roots with the plow, 

 together with overbearing. There is not to-day an apple in 

 the country that, if put upon a vigorous, healthy, close root- 

 pruned stock, will not bear as fine fruit as it did the first 

 crop it ever bore, provided its roots are let alone when the 

 tree begins to bear. As bearing on this point I give the 

 following letter: 



