62 ORCHARD FRUIT TREE CULTURE 



They interest the private rather than the ordinary commercial 

 grower (except under glass), so we can pass them by as of interest 

 only to the few. Plums and cherries still remain, and as we have 

 already pointed out the early treatment of these is identical with 

 that of apples and pears the budding, the grafting, the formation 

 and the cultivation are all similar. 



There is no doubt that stone fruit suffers even more than apples 

 and pears from the attacks of insect pests, probably because the 

 foliage is more tender or contains more palatable properties, but 

 whatever the reason the fact remains. We have seen black aphis so 



FlG. 27. Two-year Trained Plum on Mussel Stock 



thick on young cherries as to hide foliage and wood, and plums as 

 thickly crowded with the blue. When they attack trees in such 

 vast swarms they sap their vitality to such an extent that in a very 

 brief period they can so cripple them as to weaken them for years. 

 The only thing we can do is to be on the look-out, to spray against 

 them and to spray for them ; if we cannot prevent the attack we can 

 stamp it out by timely effort. 



Cherries do remarkably well on well -drained warm soils, 

 especially on fairly open, deep loam over chalk. For a limited 

 number of years they can be profitable on shallow soils, but in 

 course of time die off a branch at a time or even altogether in one 



