120 FRUIT FARMING 



True to Kind.— A word as to getting trees true 

 to name: — Nurserymen are but mortal, and when it 

 is considered that many hundreds of varieties are 

 grown, the wonder is that so few mistakes occur. 

 If, when you go into a Nursery, you see the tallies 

 or number pegs systematically arranged, you may be 

 sure that the proprietors and foremen are careful 

 people. Where the pegs are partly rotten, tumbled 

 down, or illegible (which happens in soils that do not 

 grow trees freely, and where they remain a long time 

 on the ground), it would be a better plan to mark 

 your trees while the leaf is on. Mistakes rarely occur 

 in market trees, because they are grown in large quarters 

 of a kind, but in garden sorts, where perhaps the fore- 

 man has not opportunities of selecting grafts, mistakes 

 may be innocently propagated. Strawberries for 

 market are readily selected, as purchasers can satisfy 

 themselves by seeing them in fruit or foliage, or by 

 asking for samples of plants. 



Propagation. — Now as to propagation of Bush 

 fruits : — The stronger shoots left from pruning are 

 selected and cut to the length of 6-in. in Black 

 Currants, and 8 to 9-in. in Gooseberries and Red 

 Currants, and where the latter are preferred on a leg 

 or short stem, the eyes (buds) are removed at the base, 

 leaving four or five at the top, and the cuttings are 

 either inserted by pushing them into the soil, which 

 has been previously prepared, or by making a trench, 

 and laying them in regularly, 6-in. apart, taking care 

 to havi' the earth at the base lirnily trodden down; 

 any spare corner of land can thus be utilized (if a 

 little shaded, all the better), and success will in a 

 great measure ilepend upon the season, a dry spring 



