No. 4.] FRUITS FOR LOCAL MARKETS. 73 



Mr. Clark. When would 3^ou do this? 



Mr. Hale. Any time when my axe was sharp, and trees 

 in the dormant condition, never later than early April. 



Mr. Clark. Wouldn't there be quite a good many apples 

 on the ground from low-headed trees? 



Mr. Hale. Yes ; the low branches, of course, would go 

 down. There would be that objection, but there are objec- 

 tions to everything. You lose some fruit, and the tempta- 

 tion is to shear those off, so as to get up close to the tree in 

 culture, but don't do it ; you must thin, spray, prune and 

 harvest ; and to do this best, the trees must come down to 

 the ground. The old tall trees are bound to be superseded 

 by the low-headed ones. 



Prof. F. Wm. Rane (of Boston). This is a question that 

 I am highly interested in. I am setting out apple trees in 

 my native State of Michigan, and before going into this, 

 this was a point I thoroughly believed in, but the last year 

 or two I have been inclined to think just the other way. I 

 am inclined to think it is going to prove a mistake if we start 

 the trees too near the ground. We have one noted example 

 in Peterboro, N. H., wdiere the man takes care of his orchard 

 to the pink of perfection in every way, and not only sprays 

 and prunes, but feeds the trees, and has carried every thing- 

 out beautifully ; but when I was there this fall, when they 

 were picking apples, lots of them were on the ground, and 

 you had to lift the linil:>s to get them ; and the trees that 

 were doing well necessarily had props all through them. Of 

 course there is individuality with every tree. I think it will 

 depend largely on the nature of the tree itself; some trees 

 will stand upright, and have more or less the tendency to 

 hold their fruit high ; on the other hand, some trees have a 

 natural tendency to lie on the ground, although the head be 

 very high. In looking into that question two years ago, I 

 made up my mind that one of the things necessary was to 

 get a tree pretty high. I visited a great many of the west- 

 ern New York oi'chards, and talked the matter over, and I 

 believe why they went high was because they wanted to cul- 

 tivate in the orchard and raise other crops ; and, while that 

 is a laudable object, I didn't look at it from that standpoint. 



