IS2 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



For the New England Farmer, 

 ABOUT APPLES— No. 2. 



There are several questions by which the culti- 

 vators of apples seem at present to be specially 

 exercised. They are important questions. The 

 first is, Can trees be made to bear every year ? 

 The second is. Can trees which have the habit of 

 bearing on one alternate year be made to change 

 their habit, and bear on the other alternate year ? 

 The third is, What is the best method of cultivat- 

 ing an orchard after the trees have arrived at a 

 bearing condition ? 



Fruit buds, from which the crop of any one 

 year is produced, are prepared by the tree in the 

 autumn of the preceding year. When a tree is 

 maturing a full crop of apples, its powers are 

 taxed to the utmost. It can appropriate but little 

 towards the formation of new fruit buds, and the 

 deposition of organizable matter for the nutri- 

 ment of another crop. Time is wanted to collect 

 its energies and aocumulate material. Most of 

 our cultivated trees require an entire year for this 

 purpose. Thus they become biennial bearers. 

 In other words, it takes them two years to work 

 out and {perfect a crop. This is the general law 

 to which our cultivated trees are subject. But 

 there are many exceptions to this law. Some va- 

 rieties are annual bearers. Many trees bear a few 

 apples every year, among those which observe the 

 biennial rule with regard to full crops. These 

 exceptions are so numerous that many are led to 

 inquire if the two years' rule is necessary at all. 

 The question may be put in another form. Plants 

 as well as criminals are subject to habit, and habit 

 may spring from natural constitution, or it may 

 be acquired. Is the biennial habit of apple trees 

 natural, or is it the result of cultivation ? If it is 

 natural, it will probably be impossible to change 

 it. If it is an acquired one, it may possibly be 

 changed by allowing trees to mature only a cer- 

 tain amount of fruit, just so much as they are able 

 to carry, while they are at the same time provid- 

 ing resources for a succeeding crop. But if this 

 should prove possible, the question would at once 

 arise, is not one full crop better than two small 

 ones ,•* I will not discuss this question further. 

 I will only observe that any one disposed to try 

 an experiment on some tree favorably situated, 

 must expect to continue it several years before 

 any satisfactory result can be reached. 



I have said that most of our cultivated trees 

 have the habit of bearing on alternate years, and 

 it so happens, unfortunately, as most of our cul- 

 tivators think, that most of them bear on the sume 

 year. Consequently, on one year we have a great 

 abundance, and on the succeeding year, very few. 

 Now if the habit of a portion of them can be 

 changed so that they will bear on the other alter- 

 nate year, we shall have a good supply every year. 



Various attempts have been made to effect this 

 desirable result. It has been recommended to 

 take off all the blossoms of a young tree on the 

 year on which we do not wish it to bear, with the 

 view of leading it to bear on the succeeding year. 

 And I think it quite possible that perseverance 

 for several years might, in some instances, be at- 

 tended with success. Perhaps the habit of bien- 

 nial bearing is not stronger in any apple tree than 

 in the Baldwin, and it so happens that most Bald- 

 wins yield their crops in the even years. Such 

 trees are especially valuable, because in the odd 



or scarce years, apples bear a much higher price. 

 Attempts are being made to get a crop on the odd 

 ■ years, by setting grafts from the trees which bear 

 on the odd years into trees which have the habit of 

 bearing on the even years. The results which have 

 been attained by this method, although it seems a 

 promising one, do not seem thus far to have been 

 very satisfactory, at least so far as my observation 

 extends. In one or two instances they have been 

 reported highly so. When a graft with one habit 

 is thus married to a stock with a different habit, 

 there must be a struggle for the mastery. Which 

 shall prevail time only can decide. Perhaps in 

 some cases the stock will prevail, and in others the 

 graft. A gentleman who is cultivating apples 

 largely, and who is trying the experiment, told me 

 a few weeks ago that his grafts obviously showed 

 a tendency to follow the habit of the stock into 

 which they were grafted. In making the experi- 

 ment it is important that the grafts should be 

 taken from trees which have the habit of bearing 

 on the odd years, well confirmed, — that it should 

 be a natural habit, and not the result of accident. 

 I think experiments with relation to this question 

 should be made more extensively than they have 

 hitherto been. 



Our fathers were in the habit of setting apple 

 trees on the headlands around the borders of their 

 fields, by the roadsides and in their pastures. 

 But we have adopted a different method. On 

 most of our farms a portion of the best land is 

 devoted to an orchard. It seems to be agreed on 

 all hands, that, while trees are young, it is neces- 

 sary to keep the soil under constant cultivation. 

 The trees then interfere but little with the hoed 

 crop. Almost as much corn or potatoes is ob- 

 tained as if there were no trees growing on the 

 ground. But if the trees are set at the usual dis- 

 tance apart, in a few years they shade nearly the 

 entire surface, and their roots fill the soil, and now 

 the corn and potatoes will not yield sufficient to 

 pay for the seed and labor, and besides it is diffi- 

 cult to work among the trees without injuring 

 them. What is now to be done ? Shall the land 

 be given up wholly to the trees and kept cultivat- 

 ed for their sole benefit? If they gave us a crop 

 every year, the case would be quite different. 

 Now we get a crop of apples only every other 

 year, and nothing in the intervening year. But 

 grass will grow in the shade where the soil is good, 

 better than any other crop, and is perhaps our 

 most valuable crop. If hay grown in an orchard 

 is not of quite as good a quality, it may be nearly 

 as much in quantity as though there were no trees 

 on the ground, especially it it gets an early start 

 before the trees have fully put on their foliage. 

 The question now is, may not grass be grown in 

 orchards where the trees are so large as to shade 

 the ground, and at the same time the vigor and 

 health of the trees be maintained by means of 

 topdressing, and thus a valuable crop be obtained 

 from the land every year ? 



This question is now being discussed with much 

 interest by many farmers who appropriated a por- 

 tion of their best land to an orchard fifteen or 

 twenty years ago. Its solution may lead to a 

 change in the method of managing our orchards. 

 At the present prices of apples, say forty or fifty 

 cents a barrel, on the trees, and that only every 

 other year, it becomes a serious question whether 

 the land cannot be more profitably occupied, and 



