OF DWARF FRUIT TREE CULTURE. 63 



DWARF FRUIT TREES FROM A COMMERCIAL FRUIT GROW. 

 ER'S POINT OF VIEW. 



While the adaptability of dwarf fruit trees to the suburbanite's 

 requirements is now an established fact, its applicability to the con- 

 ditions of the commercial orchardist is still open to controversy and 

 worthy of consideration. While the suburbanite may have little or 

 no experience, the commercial orchardist knows just what he wants 

 and can form as sound an opinion for himself and is just as capable 

 of weighing arguments that I submit as I am. For a numbers of 

 years I have been a commercial orchardist and have fought the 

 fruit pests in every available manner. I remember long ago, before 

 fruit pests had become so multiplied and spraying was invented, 

 that we grew fine fruit with little difficulty. We had, of course, 

 the codling moth and the curculio and a host of other fruit pests, 

 but nothing to compare with the present condition of things, and 

 there seems to be little show of improvement with all our advanced 

 knowledge and extra work. What we want is to be able to reduce 

 the amount of work and make what is absolutely necessary easier. 

 We require to reduce the size of our trees to reduce the labor of 

 thinning, spraying, picking, lessen the number of windfalls, increase 

 the yield of fruit, and, above all, improve the quality and beauty 

 of our fruit, and early bearing of the trees, and thereby increase 

 the prices and profits of our orchards. Ml these objects may be 

 attained by the intelligent adoption into our system of orchard man- 

 agement of the use of dwarf fruit trees. 



It has been demonstrated beyond question that the dwarfing 

 of fruit trees has the effect of increasing the prolificacy and early 

 bearing as well as the size, beauty and quality of the fruit. It has 

 been found that these apple trees dwarfed on Paradise stock will 

 begin to bear the second year from the bud, sometimes even the 

 first year, and by the fourth, will frequently bear one bushel or 

 more of choice apples. It must be remembered that these little trees 

 may be planted only four feet apart, and under some circumstances 

 even less; they may be taken up and moved from place to place, 

 and from time to time, without interrupting their fruit bearing. The 

 following is a report of an experiment in growing apples dwarfed 

 on Paradise stock to establish their yield in England: j 



Apple tree planted (a Warner's King). 



1871 Planted a "maiden" tree. 



