CARE IN SETTING TREES. 43 



and raise the quality to such an extent that we can sell all 

 our crop as a market fruit? I think it is true to-day that 

 the great majority of our apple-orchards are neglected, and as 

 a consequence, they are not making wood. They bear enor- 

 mously in the fruit-bearing year; they bear all the crop they 

 can stagger under ; they exhaust themselves, and can neither 

 make wood nor fruit-buds for the next year, and consequently, 

 the next year they rest. If we can devise any means by 

 which we can improve this crop, I believe we can make it prof- 

 itable. Mr. Ware does it to some extent by manuring and 

 cultivating, so that his trees have a steady and moderate 

 growth, and while they are making this moderate growth, 

 they are also making a fair amount of fruit-buds, so that they 

 bear from year to year. I know that that is not the tendency 

 of the Baldwin apple, but I think the facts are beginning 

 to be sufficient for us to take the position that we can change 

 the bearing year of the Baldwin. I think, if we follow this 

 method of treatment, and try to keep at a moderate growth, 

 with a moderate crop, we can equalize this fruit, and make it a 

 profitable crop in New England. It is too bad that we should 

 pronounce a fruit as valuable as the apple, and so well adapted 

 as the apple is to New England, an unprofitable crop. I believe 

 it may be made a profitable crop, if we will take more pains 

 with it, if we will cultivate it better, and study to put our 

 brains into this crop, which has been for the past years so much 

 neglected. 



Mr. Merrifield of Worcester. The question which was 

 asked by one gentleman in relation to his trees, has not been 

 answered, nor has any attempt been made,T think, to answer 

 it definitely. But I think it is an important question to 

 people purchasing trees and transplanting them. I suppose 

 it is well known to every horticulturist, that if he receives 

 shrubs or trees, although the roots may be well packed in 

 moss, and kept fresh, yet if the wood of the tree, plant or 

 shrub becomes dry, so that it shrinks from the bark, the 

 probability is that the tree or shrub, or whatever it is, will 

 never grow. By cutting it down, possibly, he may get a 

 tree from the root, but he will not be very likely to get a tree 

 from the top, if it has been so treated. That, I think, is the 

 difficulty with a great many trees that are purchased and set 



