FARM GARDEN 



FARM GARDEN 



277 



Winter fruit should be allowed to hang on the 

 trees until fully mature, but must be picked before 

 it mellows and before heavy freezing weather 

 comes. After picking, it should be put in a place 

 with an even, low temperature. On the farm this 

 may be in a north shed, the north side of a high 

 building, or a cellar, where the temperature has 

 been lowered by opening the windows on frosty 

 nights and closing them during the day, or by a 

 quantity of cracked ice and salt (ice-cream freezing 

 mixture). A half -ton of ice and fifty pounds of 

 salt will cool a large space down to a good keeping 

 temperature for most fruits. This temperature in 

 the North can be kept low by closing the doors and 

 windows during the day and opening them at night, 

 when the outside temperature is lower than that 

 inside. 



Dwarf fruit trees. 



Pear trees are prevented from growing large by 

 being budded on quince stocks. Apples are dwarfed 

 by being worked on paradise or doucin stocks 

 (small-stature forms of apple tree). Dwarfs occupy 

 less space than standard or free stocks, usually 

 come into bearing earlier, but they require more 

 care in pruning, spraying and thinning. Dwarf 

 pears are often grown commercially, but dwarf 

 apples are not yet planted for profit in this country. 

 Any variety of apple may be grown on the dwarf 

 stocks ; but inasmuch as apple-dwarfing is a home- 

 garden practice, only good dessert varieties should 

 be grown. Dwarf pears may be planted ten to 

 twenty feet apart, depending on how closely they 

 are kept headed in. About one rod asunder each 

 way is the usual distance. Apples on doucin (Pig. 

 383) may be given such distances ; those on para- 

 dise stocks may be set at half these distances. All 

 dwarfs should be started low and kept well headed 

 back. Paradise-stock apple trees should be little 

 more than bushes, or they may be trained as espa- 

 liers or cordons. [For further information, see 

 Waugh's "Dwarf Fruit Trees," New York, 1906, 

 and Bailey's " Pruning-Book."] 



SmaUrfruits. 



The average farmer's family consumes less of 

 the small cultivated fruits than the average city 

 or village family, notwithstanding the advantages 

 they have for producing fruit of the best quality, 

 and that may be used in a fresh, ripe condition. 



The strawberry. — The strawberry is especially 

 adapted to growth in the home garden, and is of 

 the greatest importance from the fact that a crop' 

 can be secured in a little over a year from plant- 

 ing. Its yield per acre is equal to that of the apple 

 in quantity. We may expect to secure 5,000 to 

 15,000 quarts to the acre, or 50 to 150 barrels, 

 which, with apple trees 40 x 40 feet apart, making 

 about thirty trees to the acre, would be three to 

 five barrels per tree, which is above the yearly 

 average. 



For the largest and best returns from small- 

 fruits it is best to plant on new land. The straw- 

 berry is fruited by most growers only one or two 

 seasons, and after the fruit has been gathered the 



plants and mulch are plowed under. The land 

 is then devoted to some crop, such as celery or 

 late cabbage, that may be planted after the 

 middle of July. New land, old pasture or clover 

 sod, is planted with potatoes or some other 

 hoed crop to get rid of the white grub (larva 

 of the May beetle). The following spring straw- 

 berry plants are set as early as the land will work 

 up fine and mellow. Some growers further prepare 

 land of this kind by sowing a crop of peas and 

 barley after the potatoes ; or sufficient organic 

 matter may be incorporated by plowing under 

 a heavy dressing of manure in the fall. Thorough 

 cultivation must be practiced and all weeds kept 

 down from the time the plants are set until the 

 ground freezes in the fall. 



In the North the beds must be protected in 

 winter from freezing and thawing. A covering 

 of straw, old hay, coarse, strawy manure, pine 

 needles or other light material, put on just before 

 severe freezing weather, will serve. Only a light 

 covering, two or three inches thick, is needed, just 

 enough to shade the ground, as the injury comes 

 from the tearing action on the roots and crowns 

 by freezing and thawing, and the lifting of the 

 plants out of the ground. 



Raspberry and blackberry. — These two bush- 

 fruits do best in a rather moist, loamy soil, al- 

 though they may be grown successfully on any soil 

 that contains a good quantity of organic mat- 

 ter, if the surface is kept fine and mellow dur- 

 ing the entire season, and especially in hot, dry 

 weather. Plantations are generally renewed after 

 growing six to ten years in one place, although 

 under favorable conditions they sometimes last 

 longer. The best time for planting is in the 

 early fall, root-cutting plants being better than 

 those from suckers, although the latter are more 

 frequently used. 



They are grown in hills or in rows, the former 

 requiring a stake at each hill, or low-training 

 of the bushes by top pruning to make them branch 

 low and thus stand without supports. Cultivation 

 may be done with the horse both ways, when 

 the hill-method is used. 



In rows, the canes may be supported by two 



r^y 



Fig. 384. A simple method of holdins beny canes in place. 



wires, one stretched on each side of the plants and 

 held in place by a nail driven into the cross- 

 piece of the support, slanting toward the center. 

 (Fig. 384.) The wires may be raised at any time 

 and drawn into the middle of the row so as to get 

 outside of all the canes, and then be put back 



