1 86 Home Vegetable Gardening 



But enough of reasons. If the call of the soil is 

 in your veins, if your fingers (and your brain) in 

 the springtime itch to have a part in earth's ever- 

 wonderful renascence, if your lips part at the 

 thought of the white, firm, toothsome flesh of a 

 ripened-on-the-tree red apple — then you must have 

 a home orchard without delay. 



And it is not a difficult task. Apples, pears and 

 the stone fruits, fortunately, are not very particular 

 about their soils. They take kindly to anything 

 between a sandy soil so loose as to be almost shift- 

 ing, and heavy clay. Even these soils can be made 

 available, but of course not without more work. 

 And you need little room to grow all the fruit your 

 family can possibly eat. 



Time was, when to speak of an apple tree 

 brought to mind one of those old, moss-barked 

 giants that served as a carriage shed and a summer 

 dining-room, decorated with scythes and rope 

 swings, requiring the services of a forty-foot ladder 

 and a long-handled picker to gather the fruit. That 

 day is gone. In its stead have come the low-headed 

 standard and the dwarf forms. The new types 

 came as new institutions usually do, under protest. 

 The wise said they would never be practical — the 

 trees would not get large enough and teams could 

 not be driven under them. But the facts remained 

 that the low trees are more easily and thoroughly 



