194 



APPLE ORCHARDS OF MY YOUTH. 



consumed by insects, and yet smiling with a wealth 

 of blossoms in spring, and to the last of life glowing 

 with the golden tints of fruitage ? Of all deserted 

 fields or farms a deserted orchard seems the sad- 

 dest. Ic tells much of hope and joy now gone for- 

 ever ! 



Some of these old trees persist as mere wrecks, 

 rotten and broken, never having attained great size ; 

 but others have reached great stature and are still 

 vigorous. The largest tree which I know is one 

 which stands in Cheshire, Conn., and which the ac- 

 companying engravings show. It is a small yellow 

 Sweet apple, 

 keeping well 

 into the winter. 



The following 

 description was 

 written by Nor- 

 man S. Piatt, 

 of Cheshire, in 

 1880. Since 

 then the effects 

 of age have be- 

 come more ap- 

 parent. " An 

 apple-tree i n 

 the northwest- 

 e r n part of 

 Cheshire, 

 standing in Mr. 

 Delos Hotch- 

 kiss' d o o r - 

 yard, is thought 

 to be the larg- 

 est in the Unit- 

 ed States. Its 

 age can be 

 traced by a 

 family tradition 

 to one hundred 

 and fifty years 



at least, and it may be twenty or twenty-five years 

 older. It is, at the present time, of symmetrical 

 shape ; the trunk is nearly sound, without a scar 

 or blemish on it ; there are eight large branches, 

 five of which, Mr. Hotchkiss tells me, have been in 

 the habit of bearing one year, and the remaining 

 three the next. He has gathered in one year 

 from the five branches eighty-five bushels of 

 fruit, and his predecessor had harvested a crop of 

 one hundred and ten bushels from the same 

 ifive branches. By careful measurement I find the 

 circumference of the trunk, one foot above the 

 ground) above all enlargement of the roots, to be 



The Crooked Orchards, Rugged and Picturesque. 



thirteen feet eight inches. The girth of the largest 

 single limb is si.x feet eight inches. The height of 

 the tree has been carefully measured and found to 

 be sixty feet, and the spread of the branches, as the 

 apples fall, is one hundred feet or six rods." 



When shall we plant apple-trees ? Better in 

 our early years, but continue every year of our 

 lives 1 My grandfather, at the age of fifty years, 

 planted apple seeds in a nursery to raise trees for 

 an orchard. He grafted them and transplanted 

 them, and for many years enjoyed their fruit, and 

 had the satisfaction of leaving some living thing to 



remind his chil- 

 d r e n and 

 grandchildren 

 of his kindly 

 love and fore- 

 thought. These 

 stocks were 

 grafted about 

 two feet from 

 the ground, 

 when one inch 

 in diameter, a 

 ball of clay 

 bound with 

 tow being used 

 t o cover the 

 joint. This was 

 the only meth- 

 od practiced in 

 these parts for 

 grafting till 

 about 1834. 

 Vermont graft- 

 ers then came, 

 using grafting 

 wax and fur- 

 nishing scions. 

 They grafted 

 many young 



and middle-aged trees that have proved very satis- 

 factory. 



In those days we had Golden Russets, Seek-no- 

 Furthers, Pearmains, Rhode Island Greenings, 

 Esopus Spitzenbergs — glorious ones ! — Gilliflowers, 

 Pippins or Pound apples, Swaar and the Sweet 

 Bough — of which I have never known enough grown 

 for the boys — with a few other kinds. But the native 

 fruit was the great reliance, and every farm had its 

 favorite trees, some of which were multiplied by 

 grafting, but more often from suckers grown from 

 roots disturbed by the plow. This practice ac- 

 counts for several trees of the same variety in the 



