154 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



our apples from the markets of Great 

 Britain, even allowing that the quality and 

 quantity from that small island were to com- 

 pare favorably with the Canadian. The 

 freight charges are high from Canada to 

 England, but from Tasmania it is at the ex- 

 horbitant rate of 5s per bushel. 



Just now, however, there is no need for us 

 to export our long keepers, for the prices at 

 home are unprecedently high, choice Russets 

 and Spy bringing I4.00 to §5.00 in Toronto, 

 and have even brought as much as I7.00 per 

 barrel in the city of Montreal, for extra fine 

 samples. 



USEFUL TOOLS. 



Among all the tools for pruning trees 

 there are none so useful as the large pruning 

 knife and the fine-toothed saw. In pruning his 

 three-year-old peach trees this spring the 

 knife has been the only instrument needed 

 by the writer. He has found indeed that he 

 can prune out the dead wood and shorten in 

 the young growth much more quickly with 

 the knife than with any other instrument. 



Fig. 45. 



By climbing a light step-ladder one can 

 grasp several of the small boughs in one hand 

 and with the other lop them off, and the work 

 is soon done. With older trees, of course, 

 the knife is out of the question, and with them 

 the writer has found no instrument equal to 

 the Water's tree pruner (see fig. 45), for with 

 it one can stand upon the ground and shorten 

 the branches very rapidly. This is a very 



^ 



important operation with the peach tree, for 

 if it is allowed to grow its own way, as is ad- 

 vocated by some growers, the new growth 

 will all come at the extremities of the 

 branches, and the tree die of premature old 

 age owing to the long distance through 

 barren and sickly old wood, which the sap 

 must travel to reach the growing parts. 



We very strongly advocate 

 the shortening in of the peach 

 wood from the first year after 

 planting, thus keeping the 

 tree as much as possible in 

 bush form ; for in this way 

 the tree will live to greater 

 age and at the same time give 

 the greatest amount of fruit. 

 Some even contend that they 

 find trees so treated less sub- 

 ject to the ravages of the 

 yellows than those not so 

 pruned, and we are experi- 

 menting with this in view ; 

 but whether 

 it will accom- 

 ^plish so des- 

 irable an end 

 or not, c e r- 

 tain it is that 

 the trees well 

 shortened in 

 are the hand- 

 somest ones in the or- 

 chard. 



For the apple orchard, 

 especially in the work 

 of removing the suckers 

 and of cutting out small 

 limbs that cross, the 

 combination pruner and 

 saw, called the " Little 

 Giant," is a very conve- 

 nient tool, and will save 

 a great amount of labor 

 of climbing, and thus re" 

 duce the cost of the work . 

 (See fig. 46.) By kind- 

 ness of Messrs. Johnson 

 & Stokes we are able to give our reader 

 engravings of two of these instruments. 



Fig. 46 



