26 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



February, 1910 



More and 



What Varieties to Grow 



WHEN choosing varieties of fruits for family 

 use, consider quality before all else. 

 Quality is usually obtained at the expense of hardi- 

 ness and quantity, and it requires study to learn 

 how to grow successfully the best fruits and to pro- 

 tect them from their enemies. For these reasons, 

 commercial growers generally do not plant fruits 

 of the very highest quality. In the selection of 

 trees consider the question of planting standards 

 or dwarfs. Remember that the standards are for 

 the orchard, and the dwarfs for the garden. 



In considering varieties, I name only those with 

 which I have had experience in southeastern New 

 York, or in a latitude of 42 degrees and 2,000 feet 

 above sea level, where the temperature is seldom 

 lower than 20 degrees below zero and where the 

 growing season is from the middle of May until the 

 middle of September, without hard frosts. The 

 same varieties will succeed in most of the Middle 

 and Eastern States. 



The apple is, without doubt, the most important 

 of all fruits, and most of the trees selected should be 

 high quality winter apples. Only a few early varie- 

 ties are desirable, perhaps one tree each of Sweet 

 Bough and Yellow Transparent will suffice. The 

 best medium early apple is Strawberry and the best 

 for late fall is the Fameuse (Snow) and Jersey 

 Sweet, sometimes called Victoria Sweet. For late 

 fall and early winter plant Banana and Grimes 

 Golden. Newtown Pippin and King are the high- 

 est quality winter apples for those who prefer a 

 mild or subacid flavor. The winter apples I most 

 enjoy are Esopus, Jonathan, Swaar and Seek-No- 

 Further. Mcintosh Red is good and so is Northern 

 Spy, with spicy flavor, but the flesh, in my opinion, 

 is a little coarse. Roxbury Russet is best for latest 

 use and, if wrapped in paper and packed in barrels, 

 can be kept in fine condition until summer. That 

 is the right way to pack all dessert winter apples. 

 I would not grow other varieties for culinary pur- 

 poses, for high-grade dessert apples make the best 

 sauce and pies. Just grow enough of them! I 

 find that twenty trees are none too many for my 

 family. 



The low-headed tree is the best for the family 



orchard and garden, where maximum crops are 

 not being worked for, and I would head back the 

 trees to two or three feet. One does not enjoy pick- 

 ing apples from the top of a 30-foot ladder. I 

 want to do all the work of caring for the trees and 

 harvesting the fruit while standing on the ground 

 or on a low step-ladder, so I head the trees low and 

 prune to make them grow in the vase form, for all 

 trees in the garden and orchard should be sym- 

 metrical and beautiful. Varieties of high quality, 

 being of slower growth, need better soil and less 

 pruning. Some trees need only sufficient pruning 

 to keep them growing in the right form. Leaves 

 are the trees' feeding organs and the gases in the 

 atmosphere form over 90 per cent, of their food, 

 so the larger the leaf surface the more rapid the 

 growth. The characteristics of each tree must be 

 studied to know how to rightly prune it. 



Next to apples I most value pears. My choice 

 is as follows: For earliest, Clapp Favorite; followed 

 by Bartlett, Bar-Seckel, Bosc, Seckel; Anjou for an 



Head your trees like this. It's much easier to care 

 for your crop, and easier to gather than from a 

 tall tree 



The sort of thing you really do not want ; gath- 

 ering is laborious and even dangerous 



early winter pear, and if I cared for pears all winter 

 I would plant Winter Nellis. I would use Bartlett 

 and Anjou in the greatest numbers. Pear trees 

 require only sufficient pruning to start them right, 

 and three or four feet is about the right height to 

 head them. When the right form is established, it 

 is best to leave the trees alone, so far as pruning is 

 concerned, except to cut away any diseased wood 

 or branches which are too close together. 



Peaches can be grown with some success in most 

 parts of New York State and in other sections hav- 

 ing the same or a more southern latitude, although, 

 like the apple and pear, they need special methods 

 of culture in a cold climate. The white fleshed 

 type is the best dessert peach, and is more hardy 

 than the yellow-fleshed. Probably the Greensboro 

 is the earliest peach that is good for anything; 



Champion has the most delicious flavor and is very 

 hardy. Peach trees need more pruning than pears, 

 but I do not favor severe pruning of any tree in one 

 year. If grown without protection in a cold climate, 

 plant on high ground and in moderately rich soil. 

 In my locality fair crops are produced in this way. 

 The garden culture of peaches, trained to a trellis, 

 is very interesting work for those who garden for 

 pleasure, and for the family, and the largest and 

 finest fruit is grown in this way. 



My experience in plum culture has taught me 

 some lessons. The highest quality I have found 

 in the European plums, among the best of which 

 is Reine Claude. The Bradshaw, Shropshire, 

 Damson, Fallenburg, and a few trees of Japan 

 plums are also desirable. Japan plums thrive 

 best where the peach thrives, and under similar 

 conditions; and I recommend Burbank, Abundance, 

 Red June and Wickson. They are not of high 

 quality, but are valuable for sauce and for 

 canning. They bear very large crops and are 

 less infected by curculio and black knot than 

 other varieties. 



Sour cherries are, perhaps, the most easily grown, 

 and give the quickest returns of all tree fruits grown 

 in my locality. English Morello and Montmorency 

 are as good as any. I have several times planted 

 sweet cherries, but in this climate, without treat- 

 ment similar to that which you would give the peach, 

 they do not live many years. The Windsor has 

 done the best with me. Cherry trees require about 

 the same treatment, as to pruning and culture, as 

 pears, except that I would head them a little lower; 

 with but very little pruning or care, they make 

 very symmetrical and ornamental trees. There is 

 no place where I enjoy being and working more 

 than in a little cherry orchard, especially when the 

 trees are in blossom or fruiting. 



When one has growing on his place most of the 

 varieties I have named, with, perhaps, a quince tree, 

 he has about the best and most luscious fruits that 

 can be grown in this climate, especially if they are 

 rightly grown and picked only when fully ripe. 

 One point which I would emphasize is that fruit 

 growing can be made a pleasant recreation, and 

 that the rewards are not only the pleasure of eating 

 the fruit, but the work may bring rest to both mind 

 and body, and better health and spirits. 



New York. W. H. Jenkins. 



Train the young tree in the "way it should go. 

 Three years old, and destined for the vase form 



