Five Years' Experience With Dwarf Fruit Trees 



By G. M. Stack, 



Con- 

 necticut 



MY OBJECT in planting dwarf fruit 

 trees was to secure a variety of the 

 best apples and pears within as small a space 

 as possible. Our vegetable garden was 

 the only desirable place at hand and if 

 anytrees were to be 

 planted they must 

 be of a size that 

 would not shade 

 the ground to an 

 extent that would 

 be detrimental to 

 the vegetables. 

 Why not plant the 

 whole garden to 

 dwarf trees and se- 

 cure both fruits 

 and vegetables off 

 the same ground? 

 This was done five 

 years ago. I or- 

 dered ioo dwarf 

 apples and am so 

 satisfied with the 

 results obtained 

 from these trees 

 that I am doubling 

 the size of my 

 orchard this spring. 

 The trees were 

 planted ten feet 

 apart each way be- 

 cause I wanted to 

 use some of the 

 space for vege- 

 tables and also to 

 allow for horse cul- 

 tivation; otherwise 

 they could have 

 been put closer. 

 The nurserymen could not supply me 

 with all the varieties desired, so I 

 purchased one year old trees of such 

 varieties as they offered that would make 

 a strong growth on the Paradise or dwarf 

 stock, these to be top worked with cions 

 of the desired varieties after they were 

 established. Baldwin and Greening were 

 bought in the greatest numbers and only 

 a few of Red Astrachan, Alexander, 

 Stayman's Winesap, Spy, Russet, Wealthy, 

 Duchess, and Fameuse. 



Still other varieties were offered but 

 as I wanted several varieties not found in 

 the lists I concluded to secure the cions 

 from local orchards and grow my own 

 trees by top working the common varieties 

 at hand. Yellow Transparent, Gilliflower, 

 Lady, Twenty Ounce, Mcintosh, Sweet 

 Bough, Talman Sweet, Fall Pippin, Ben 

 Davis, Gravenstein and Spitzenberg were 

 thus added, and I still have other trees 

 to be made over. The pear trees were 

 purchased, in only four varieties; Bartlett, 

 Seckel, Clapp Favorite, and Duchesse 

 d'Anjou, and all seem to be making good 

 growth. 



Bartlett pear in frat the 

 same year as planted 



By top working your own trees you can 

 secure trees of known quality. For ex- 

 ample, I visited the best orchards in the 

 locality and selected grafts from the best 

 trees of certain varieties in the locality. 

 That it pays to select your parent tree, I 

 think, is quite proven from the fact that 

 the trees raised in this manner are a year 

 ahead of the others in bearing. 



By "top working" I mean this: The tree 

 I buy has its top of some known variety 

 (Baldwin or Greening, for example) on 

 Paradise roots. I change this top over 

 to whatever variety is desired, either by 

 budding or grafting on to the branches 

 of the Baldwin or Greening, as the case 

 may be. Northern Spy worked this way, 

 also Gravenstein and Fall Pippin, I find 

 give much better trees than if grown direct 

 on the Paradise stock. 



There are two methods by which to secure 

 the new varieties on the trees, and I use 

 both. The first is to bud the trees in Au- 

 gust on the new wood formed the same 

 season. The second, to graft the new 

 wood the following spring. 



I prefer to bud the trees in August be- 

 cause I can place the buds where they are 

 needed to balance the tree and if they fail 

 to grow I still have a chance the following 

 spring to graft them. I watch the trees 

 for the time when the bark will separate 

 from the wood and then set about to top 

 work my trees. There is not the amount of 

 work in budding that is encountered in 

 grafting, and if the buds fail to grow the 

 branches are not damaged to the extent 

 that they are by grafting. Again some 

 varieties, like the Lady apple, give poor 

 grafting material because the wood is 

 so short jointed, and budding is therefore 

 easier. 



I select budding material from thrifty 

 trees that are in fruit and gather the 

 budding wood from the annual growth 

 and not from the water sprouts. The pro- 

 cess is ordinary budding as has been pre- 

 viously described in The Garden Maga- 

 zine. Two buds are used on each branch 

 and always placed to the outside — one 

 three inches above the other, and not in 

 line. If one bud dies there is still a 

 second chance of the branch having the 

 new variety on it. The portion of the 

 branch of one year old wood above the bud 

 is cut off in the spring if the bud has 

 survived. I have had but little trouble 

 in budding trees in this manner but have 

 had considerable trouble with splitting the 

 trees in spring grafting. 



The trees that were grafted in the spring 

 w r ere whip grafted. I like to have the 

 stock a little advanced toward sending 

 out the buds before attempting this work. 

 The cions are secured the year before and 

 packed in sawdust during the winter and 

 if they are kept slightly moistened they 



173 



will be in the right condition for work at 

 any time when the weather permits graft- 

 ing. The whip and tongue graft is the 

 easiest to make because there is more 

 than one chance for the wood to unite 

 and if the corresponding layers of bark 

 of both stock and cion are brought to- 

 gether and securely held by waxed twine 

 they will grow. The place where the 

 graft is made should be waxed over 

 and also the tip of the cion; if this 

 is not thoroughly done the cion will not 

 grow. 



The trees in my orchard have been 

 pruned severely each year, in order to 

 secure a well shaped tree that would bear 

 fruit on stout branches, because I wanted 

 to make my trees before securing the fruit. 

 The Bismarck apple trees had fruit on them 

 the second season and have been in fruit 

 every year since. Last year the trees 

 averaged one peck to a tree and I could 

 have harvested more if they had not been 

 thinned. The other varieties have yielded 

 from a dozen fruits to a peck to a tree. 

 Mcintosh, Yellow Transparent and Red 



This tree is ready to be " top-worked " to any desired 

 variety by grafting or budding (2 years old) 



