Packing Table in General Use. 

 (Courtesy Better Fruit.) 



GENERAL ORCHARD MANAGEMENT. 



Samuel Frazer, OrcJiardisf, Geiicsco, X. Y. 



In discussing this question of General Orchard ^lanagement 

 it may be wise to first relate the story of the beginning of our young 

 orchards. These were planted nearly four years ago. At that 

 time I had the idea that the best thing for me to do would be to 

 top work most of the trees to the varieties I intended to grow. I 

 did not top work everything, but planted some varieties as they 

 came direct from the nursery in order to have them as checks. I 

 may say at the outset that I am not in favor of the top-working 

 and have been forced to this conclusion bv mv own results. It ma}^ 

 be that as time goes on I shall see reason to change my mind. 

 Thus far I am not prepared to advise it. 



\Ye have something like 150 acres of apples, the permanent 

 varieties being Baldwin, Greening and Northern Spy. There are 

 but 10 acres of bearing trees on the farm; among these we found 

 3 Greening, 3 Baldwin and 3 Spv trees which appeared to be better 

 than the others, and almost all of the Avood we needed for top- 

 working was taken from these trees. In order to have a complete 

 check on the method I top-worked six rows of Greening with 

 scions taken from an ordinary nurserv. I mav sav here that these 

 do not show the same tvpe of foliage that we find on our own 

 trees. We can detect individual difi:"erences in trees, and we know 

 that in some cases these are transmitted. 



Wq began bv planting our trees in the sprine with the idea of 

 budding them in the fall. A few which were planted the fall previ- 

 ous were grafted in the spring in the limbs, and we secured about 

 80 per cent, stand of the grafts put in. At the time of budding 

 we had a small epidemic of fire blight. The nurservman had con- 

 tracted to chang^e the tops of the trees as I desired, therefore, he 

 had to do the budding and g^rafting; and although. I told his man 

 I did not want him to try to bud any trees which showed fire blight. 



