20 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



If desired, plums could be placed between the apple standards, or 

 gooseberries and currants, omitting the dwarf apples. If the land 

 is properly prepared the apples should need no manure for some 

 years, as the use of stimulants while the trees are young is 

 prejudicial by inducing a sappy unripened growth which lays the 

 tree open to damage by frost. When the trees are carrying a 

 heavy crop, mulching may be carried out in June, or liquid 

 manure can be used with advantage in the growing time. Such 

 a plantation as described would commence to bring a return from 

 the dwarfs in two years, and the fruit, with a little care in thinning, 

 would command a ready sale, because, when grown in this 

 manner, it is cleaner in appearance and much larger in size. In 

 three or four years the standards would commence to fruit, and 

 a much larger return would annually be made, and if properly 

 managed, at the end of fourteen years the crop would buy the 

 fee simple of the land outright. 



In order to make the highest price, all fruits should be 

 "graded," as the Americans say, and be of an even sample 

 throughout ; be properly named, and packed carefully, so that the 

 baskets open clean and bright at the market. In the case of 

 choice dessert kinds it would probably pay to pack them in light 

 card boxes, such as those introduced by Mr. Tallerman for 

 cherries, &c., and manufactured by Messrs. Johnson. In fact, 

 we should take example from the French, and put our produce up 

 in an attractive form. The pruning of the apples in February or 

 March is of the simplest ; no apples should be pruned the first 

 year of planting. For the first two years commence to form the 

 standard trees by taking out all the inner wood to obtain a bowl 

 shape, and cut back the young growth to four or six eyes, to a 

 bud pointing outward ; the fourth or fifth year shorten the wood 

 of the current year to six or twelve inches, and keep the centres 

 clear, and after that time let them grow as they like, merely 

 shortening the tips to procure an evenly balanced head, and 

 taking out any crossing pieces of growth. The dwarfs can be cut 

 in to form pyramids or basins, as desired, for two years, and 

 after that be allowed to grow freely. Other matters, such as 

 securing the limbs in a heavy crop, and staking the standards, 

 will have to be attended to, and the stakes must be removed fi'om 

 the standards in the winter as soon as the trees can do without 

 support, as the ties are apt to cut into the bark and produce canker. 



For apple growing, land need not be contiguous to a railway 

 station, as they will travel well if carefully packed. Storing 

 enables a grower to realise a high price at a time when good apples 

 are scarce ; where proper stores, such as the hop oasts of Kent, do 

 not exist, a frost-proof shed will do, and if care is taken to store 

 all sound fruit, a thick covering of straw will effectually exclude 

 frost, and keep the fruit plump and heavy. If 1,100 trees bore 

 half a gallon each, at three years old the crop would be about 70 



