HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 333 



MANAGEMENT OF CIDER APPLE TREES. 



Tree G-uards. — Many proprietors at the present time go to the expense 

 of posts, two, three or four of which they join together with cross-pieces. 

 This is unquestionably the best mode of protecting the trees against cattle 

 and wind, but it is not everywhere adopted. In many places guards are 

 employed that injure more than they protect the trees, and which cannot in 

 any case maintain them against the action of the wind. 



With the view of preserving them from the shock of axles, shafts, horses' 

 collars, &c, the stems of the young Apple trees which are in tilled ground 

 are completely and closely twisted round with straw rope3 to the height of 

 4 J feet. The bad effects of this guard, which in nowise prevents the trees 

 from being thrown down when they get a severe shock, are to cause strang- 

 ulations of the stem, and, above all, to deprive it of the free access of air 

 and light, which are always of great benefit to the young bark ; and lastly 

 beneath the straw covering various insects that are hurtful to vegetation 

 breed in perfect security. 



Leaning Trees. — Many Apple trees, especially in the fields, lean to one 

 side from the effects of the wind ; and in our part of the country they lean 

 so much over from the west, that a stranger, if he were lost, could find the 

 right direction by merely looking at the stems of these trees. The majority 

 of them have been thus blown aside for want of a post guard, to which they 

 might have been fixed, or the tree might have been kept upright by means 

 of some sods piled against the stem on the side opposite to the direction of 

 the wind. 



The neglect of these precautions renders the trees disagreeable to the eye, 

 obstructs cultivation, and makes them more liable to be overthrown by high 

 winds. 



Suckers. — Trees often throw up suckers which absorb the sap to no profit, 

 but, on the contrary, to the injury of the head of the tree. Common sense 

 would teach us to uncover these suckers to the place where they originate, 

 and then -cut them off close, so that they may nqt again spring up ; but this 

 13 not the usual way of going to work. 



The most careful, pass a spade between the stem of the tree and the suck- 

 ers ; then striking vigorously, they wound the former, and by breaking and 

 tearing away the suckers from the roots, wounds are formed which in heal- 

 ing absorb a portion of sap which would have gone to promote the growth 

 of the tree. But still more frequently no attention is paid to the removal 

 of these suckers, the care of stopping their growth being left to the cows and 

 sheep. 



In arable land, bruises and tearing of the bark by axles, plough beams, 

 collars of horses, &c, are of frequent occurrence, because the ground is 



