50 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
care for. No matter how choice the variety, nor 
how high its reputation, if the fruit were not con¬ 
genial to our soil, we would discard it at once, 
and adopt the varieties, and those only which were 
xurc in their good quality, and steady bearing. 
We have had our own share of experience in 
the matter. 
Some years ago a pomologist or two about 
Rochester, N. Y. had discovered the “ Northern 
Spy,” a paragon among apples—long keepers, 
delicious in flavor, “ best” of all. It was praised 
in the papers and periodicals, discussed in the 
conventions, pronounced “ good” by the savans, 
and adopted by the authors. The fruit was, in 
fact, all that was said of it in the specimens pro¬ 
duced. The tree, according to its friends, was a 
“ great bearer,” a “ vigorous grower”—in short, it 
was the excellence of the apple family all com¬ 
bined. In an orchard of several hundreds of 
newly planted trees, so thoroughly were we con¬ 
vinced of its value, that we put out a hundred, or 
more of them ; and although they have stood a 
dozen years by the side of the others, for every 
individual, decent, marketable Northern Spy apple 
that we have gathered, we have picked a score of 
Greenings, Baldwins, Spitzenburghs, and Russets. 
Up to this date, our trees, time, land, and labor, 
have been thrown away on the famous “ Spys,” 
while the others have repaid our pains in all that 
we could ask or require. If they do not soon re¬ 
form their manners, the vaunted Northern Spys 
will he headed down and re-grafted, (as we have 
already done with some other varieties,) with 
Greenings, and Russets.—sure bearers, and al¬ 
ways saleable in market; and this is but a sam¬ 
ple of the experience of others. 
Another vital element of success in the orchard, 
is the 
SELECTION OF STOCK. 
Any one at all conversant with the habits of 
tne different varieties of apples, knows there is a 
great difference in the growth and hardihood of 
the stocks on which they grow. This subject is 
not half enough considered by the orehardist. 
Let him go into a nursery where all the different 
varieties are growing in a good soil, each shading 
and protecting the other thickly in the rows, un¬ 
der good, and frequently forced cultivation, and 
he will at once suppose they are all alike thrifty, 
hardy, and promising. Bui such is only the fact 
while in the nursery. Some varieties are tender, 
slow of growth, and scarcely hardy when exposed 
in the orchard to the fierce heats and cold blasts 
which alternately shine upon and sweep over 
them. Other varieties are hardy under all cir¬ 
cumstances—vigorous and s tel wart Others still, 
there are, which bend and writhe about, scarce¬ 
ly knowing which way to grow while young, and 
newly planted out without stakes, and propping. 
These different habits are original properties 
of the wood itself, natural, organic, and only 
to be corrected, or overcome, by care and atten¬ 
tion in its subsequent training These different 
habits and appearances in the young orchard, 
come from the modern practice of the nursery¬ 
men in grafting their trees at the root, a much 
easier one than that of growing the natural seed¬ 
ling stock to its full or branch height, and then, 
working it with the variety to be put upon it. In 
this root-graft ing process, the natural habit of the 
seedling i3 merged in the graft, and let the root, in 
itself, he as vigorous as it may, it is entirely con- 
troled by the growth, feeble, or vigorous as it 
inay be, of whatever kind is worked upon it. 
The result of this process of raising trees is, 
that, after ten or twelve years standing in the or 
chard, with equal care and cultivation, some trees 
are twice or thrice the size of others. Some are 
feeble and decaying, from their own innate weak¬ 
ness, or exposure to outside influences, while 
others are strong and vigorous as oaks, or ma¬ 
ples. We think it will be proved, as a rule, that 
fruits of high quality are usually more refined 
and delicate in their wood, than those of coarser 
and harsher toete ; that the common seedling is 
usually hardier in its stock than the highly culti¬ 
vated “ graftand therefore, that the common 
seedling, reared up to a size fit for transplanting 
into the orchard, and then grafted branch high, or 
at the point where its limbs diverge into the 
branching top, is better as stock than those which 
are root-grafted, with the wood of the choicer 
kind for the stem, instead of the natural, or seed¬ 
ling one. Thus, whv have we no modern orchard 
of “ worked” varieties which compare in size, and 
vigor at their prime, to the grand, stalwart old 
orchard of a century, ora century and a half ago, 
when root-grafting was unknown, or, if known, 
unpractised 1 We can point to the remains of 
old orchards, and to individual trees of the best, 
varieties of apple, which are two feet in diameter, 
and upwards, near the ground ; but they are 
grafted, as their huge connecting circles will 
show, several feet above the ground, at, or be¬ 
yond the branching point of their limbs. The 
new wood of the finer varieties stood above the 
adverse influences which were prone to injure 
the naked trunk, were it of the same Kind, and 
its spreading limbs and shadowy leaves shaded 
its own wood above, and kept it sound and vigor¬ 
ous, while the hardier wood of the wildling led it 
with abundance of sap and prolonged its life 
many years later than if only supported by its 
own less vigorous stock. We think there is sound 
physiological reason in this, to which the orehard¬ 
ist who cultivates any kind of fruit must give his 
assent. The nurserymen may ignore the fact, 
it is true, for it is against their practice in all, and 
their interest in propagating many varieties, while 
other varieties are as hardy as any seedlings, and 
may he. roof, grafted as successfully as to grow 
the seedling stock itself. For instance, the Rhode 
Island Greening, and the Roxbury Russet, 
though crookedly inclined from the root, and 
many others which naturally grow erect, are 
both hardy and vigorous; while the Newtown 
Pippin, Esopus Spitzenburgh, and various others, 
are comparatively puny and tender in the stock 
when worked from the root, and planted in the 
orchard. Such we beleive to be incontrovertible 
facts, and although the books say not hing of the 
subject, they should be well considered by the 
orehardist who is about to invest, not only his 
money in the first instance, but his land, and a 
large share of his future time as a permanent 
capital in the pursuit. 
Taking, therefore, our own choice in the plant¬ 
ing of an orchard, in every ease where the va¬ 
rieties we sought to propagate were not of a de¬ 
cidedly robust and vigorous growth in the stock, 
we would resort to the natural stock grown in the 
nursery to full size for planting, then plant it in 
the orchard, and when well established in the 
soil, proceed to graft it with the desired variety. 
In this way, we believe an orchard will last double 
the time, than under the present practice of plant¬ 
ing indiscriminately, from root grafted nursery 
trees. The extra cost of this procedure will pay 
in the first two or three years of bearing, and in 
the long run, its advantages will prove in¬ 
calculable 
Nothing is more common than to see a young 
orchard, be it ever so well cared for, within a 
dozen years after planting, with more or less trees 
decaying, or dead, from the causes above named 
These must be ’■eplneed. or the Iqqtl is measurably 
lost, and then the orchard goes on halting, and im¬ 
perfect. We have seen them side by side; the seed¬ 
ling transplanted out without grafting at all, the 
other of the finest varieties of root worked stocks. 
The seedling was vigorous and healthy, while 
with equal or perhaps better care, the root grafts 
were imperfect and unequal. There can be no 
doubt in our own mind of the organic difficulty in 
the latter. 
THE SIZE AND CULTURE OK THE ORCHARt 
This may be indefinite. It may depend upon 
the extent of available land which can be devoted 
to it, the ability in means of the proprietor, the 
demands of the market, and the facilities of reach¬ 
ing it. It may be as well to set down to begin 
with, that the orchard of itself, provided justice 
be done to the trees, can be devoted to very little 
profit for other crops. Field crops, particularly 
hoed ones, may be grown to advantage for a few 
years at first; hut the trees must be mainly look¬ 
ed after, even while the cultivated crops are grow¬ 
ing. The trees must be avoided by the plow, and 
the harrow, the wagon, and the cart. The crops 
must be hoed crops solely, and low crops at that; 
such as beans, potatoes, and other roots, and vines. 
Indian corn, the cereal grains, and the 
grasses are to be excluded in its best cultivation. 
Buckwheat is the only grain that may be permit¬ 
ted. That crop may he beneficial, as it may be 
sown as late as July, with a fresh plowing 
of the ground, which will help the trees in their 
Summer growth, while the plant, being mostly 
fed by the atmosphere and rains, draws less nutri¬ 
ment from the earth than other grains. Or, the 
land may be plowed two or three times in the 
course of the season for the benefit of the trees 
alone, if suitable crops cannot be profitably grown 
among them. At all events, the orchard itself 
should be first, and last., the chief object of atten¬ 
tion. [To be continued] 
The Apple Tree Borer (Saperda Bivitt.aia ) 
A PRACTICAL FRUIT-UROWER’s SUGGESTIONS. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
This destructive insect is one of the greatest 
drawbacks on the fruit culture of Pennsylvania. 
Its stealthy habits are such, that it requires the 
greatest care to enable one to check its progress, 
which could nevertheless be accomplished, if a 
simultaneous effort were made by all the fruit 
growers in a large district. Such an undertaking, 
by diminishing its emigration from neighboring 
farms, would materially prevent its injurious ef¬ 
fects ; and if the proper attention was paid to the 
subject all over the country, its final destruction 
would be more than probable. 
The perfect insect fig. 2, is one of our most 
beautiful beetles, with two white, and three light- 
brown longitudinal stripes on its upper side ; in 
length it is about $ of an inch The larva* (or grub 
of this insect fig 1, is what injures our fruit trees, 
The eggs are deposited by the perfect, inseci close 
to the ground, about the latter part of .lime or be¬ 
ginning of July, during the night, and the grass 
around the trees protects the. eggs from being found 
by the birds. In a very few days, the sun hatches 
the young larvae, which soon work their way into 
the trunk, where they can be discovered by the 
