210 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Hogs in the Apple Orchard. 
Nobody sends such apples to market as my 
neighbor John Jacobs. He always has apples 
to sell and gets the highest price. Folks prefer 
fair, large apples; and such are always packed in 
Jacobs’ barrels. You might search them with a 
candle and not find a knotty fruit or a worm 
hole. Such Rhode Island Greenings and Rox- 
bury Russets I have never met with in the old 
States. They are as handsome as any thing in 
the virgin soils of the west. 
I was going by Jacobs’ orchard last Summer, 
and I had the curiosity to call and examine for 
myself. Says I, “ Neighbor, what is there in your 
soil that makes such smooth, large apples ? They 
are a third bigger than any thing I can get, and 
my trees look as well as yours.” 
“ The secret is not in the soil,” John replied, 
with a twinkle in his eye, “ but on it. Do you ] 
see those grunters there? My pork brings me 
fifty cents a pound,—eight in flesh, and the bal¬ 
ance in fruit. I began to pasture my orchard 
ten years ago with hogs, and since that time I 
have had no trouble with wormy fruit. Apples, i 
as a general thing, don’t fall from the tree unless 
something is the matter with them. The apple- 
worm and curculio lay their eggs in the fruit, j 
and the apples drop early. The pigs devour 
the apples, and by September every unsound ap¬ 
ple is gone and I have nothing but fair fruit left. 
The crop of insects for the next year is destroy- . 
ed by the pigs. They root around under the 
trees, keep the soil loose, manure the land some, 
and work over what manure I spread. The ap¬ 
ples help the pigs, and the pigs help the apples.” j 
I saw John’s secret at once, and have profited 
by it. I never had so few insects , as this spring, 
and I give the pigs credit for it. In turning the 
orchard into a pasture put in pig's',—not land- 1 
pikes with snouts like levers. You might lose 
trees as well as insects in that case. But well bred 
animals, with judicious snouts, will root in a sub¬ 
dued and christian-like manner. Jonathan. 
Perfect Trees. 
These are almost as rare as perfect men. In 
the forest, all trees are crowded together, mak¬ 
ing only tall, naked trunks with heavy tops. On 
the outskirts of the woods they are one-sided. : 
In the open fields the case is often different.: 
Here we occasionally see a tree which lias hadj 
a chance to grow from the first as its nature de-: 
manded. Perhaps it is an elm. Its stately trunk 
rises aloft, braced up as it were by buttresses; 
then it divides into columns, spreading upward > 
and outward on every side, and at the extremi¬ 
ties, bending over and hanging down its grace¬ 
ful swaying branches—a perfect canopy of verd¬ 
ure. So the maple, beech, linden, and ash, oc¬ 
casionally present specimens of perfect develop¬ 
ment. And how pleasing is the sight, in contrast 
with the tall, lank, one-sided trees so common! 
Perfect evergreens are still more rare. And 
this, because their perfection requires a uniform 
development of branches from the top to the' 
ground. This, of course, is never seen in the 
woods, nor yet in the open fields, because stroll¬ 
ing cattle and the farmer’s ax forbid the growth 
of limbs within six or eight feet of the ground. 
We would by no means criticise harshly those 
which we do see, incomplete as they are. The 
contrast; on the wooded hills, of pine and fir 
with the lighter foliage of other trees is pleas¬ 
ing at all seasons, and never more so than in 
Autumn. But in the sense we are now consid¬ 
ering, they are quite defective. Here and there, 
in the show-grounds of a commercial nursery, or 
in the lawns of fine country places, we see what 
approaches perfection. The tree is a complete 
pyramid. Its lower branches are the longest, 
and they lie, for the most part, on the smooth 
grass. From, these up to the very apex, the 
limbs shoot out on either side, according to their 
own laws, swaying about ,at then own sweet 
will, a luxuriant mass of verdure. No two 
species or varieties of conifers are precisely 
alike; so there is no danger of monotony, even 
if all are allowed to grow in this way. 
A tree so developed, whether deciduous or 
evergreen, is a pleasant sight. It seems to be 
answering thq end for which it was created. It 
seems really to enjoy itself; whereas, a one¬ 
sided, dismembered tree awakens a painful sym¬ 
pathy. You feel as if the poor thing were only 
half a tree, and were suffering from hard usage, 
and might about as well be hewn down and cast 
into the fire. Nearly all our village and city 
front yards, and our cemetery lots, furnish sad 
illustrations of our subject. Now we desire, in 
our humble way, to inspire a better taste. The 
farmer and land proprietor should take special 
pains to save the fine trees which they chance 
to possess. In selecting young trees for plant¬ 
ing, care should be taken to choose only well¬ 
shaped, vigorous specimens. Nurserymen 
should not crowd their stock into close rows, 
thus spoiling the symmetry of their trees; and 
if they do, planters should refuse to buy them. 
Summer Pruning. 
Now is the time to attend to this work. Yet 
it can hardly be called “work,” for it consists 
chiefly in pinching off the ends of growing 
shoots, and can be done mostly with thumb and 
finger. Mr. Barry aptly styles it “ anticipated 
pruning.” Surely, it is better to prevent the 
growing of a limb in a wrong place, than first to 
allow it to grow all summer, and then cut it off; 
for in the latter case, there is both a loss of time 
and a waste of the tree’s forces. By preventing 
the growth in one direction, we send its strength 
into another channel. We accomplish results; 
in one year, which it would otherwise have 
taken two years to effect. 
Here is a pear''tree, on which the limbs seem 
perversely inclined to push out unduly on one 
side. Let us head them off at once, and en¬ 
courage the development of buds and wood onj 
the other side. We wish to train our pear trees 
into pyramids, with one central, leading shoot; 
but often a side branch grows more lustily than 
the central. By pinching it back several times 
we can keep it in place. 
Here is a grape-vine with several shoots push¬ 
ing out strong from a single joint, while at 
another, equally important, there are none, or 
very weak ones. Pinch out all but one from 
that cluster of buds, and pinch them a second 
time, if they start again. Here, also, is a fruit- 
tree which makes an abundance, yea, a supera¬ 
bundance of wood growth, but yields no fruit. 
What can we do, that will tend to throw it 
into a fruiting state ? Try root-pruning, or try 
summer-pruning. By some means check the 
over-growth of wood-buds; this compels the ac¬ 
cumulation of sap in the remainder of the buds, 
and converts them into fruit-buds. English 
fruit-raisers' practice wliat they call spurring-in , 
on their trained trees, and find that it makes 
them very productive. This is founded on the 
principle we now advocate. Doubtless this 
practice was suggested by observing the fact 
that when the ends of a limb get broken or 
bruised during summer, it often becomes a fruit 
bearing limb the following year. 
There is another sort of pruning which may 
well be done in mid-summer, viz.: the shaping 
of all kinds of trees by the removal of limbs 
and twigs, large and small. Ornamental and 
fruit-trees are sometimes neglected in their early 
growth, and it becomes necessary to take hold 
of them with a vigorous hand, and bring them 
into good form. This is often done in Spring, 
but not wisely. The injury from bleeding, the 
poisoning of the adjacent bark and wood, and 
the slow healing of the wound are all against 
severe pruning in Spring. Prune in mid-sum¬ 
mer, and these difficulties are obviated. 
With facts and principles like these in his 
mind, we counsel the reader to try his hand at 
pruning. We think he will not go amiss. 
Tim Bunker on Stealing Fruit and Flowers. 
“ Where did you get them lalock blossoms 
and roses?” asked Seth Twiggs, as he saw Kier 
Frink driving home his empty coal cart, with 
his horse profusely decorated. There was a 
large branch between his ears tucked under the 
bridle, and a dozen or more of Dea. Smith’s 
large damask roses nodding from the hames. 
| Shouldn’t ’zactly like to tell. I’m ’fraid 
you’d all be arter ’em, they’re so handsome.” 
“ Well, I can tell, you scoundrel,” said Seth, 
as he tucked his stub of a pipe into his pocket. 
“ The roses came from Dea. Smith’s, and the 
lalocks from my yard, and they haven’t been 
picked more than five minutes. You miserable 
White-oaker and thief, don’t you know any bet¬ 
ter than to steal such things ? I’ll have you sent 
to Har’ford, for theft, sure as I am a live man.” 
“I should like to see you do it. They are 
nothing but posies, and haven’t any more vally 
than the smoke of yer pipe, Mister Twiggs. 
They hung over the road tu, and I should like 
to know if anybody haint a right to what grows 
in the road. I wanted to make the ole boss 
look kinder gay, and bring home something nice 
to the old ’oman and the young ones. I didn’t 
mean any harm.”. 
“Harm? you miserable scape grace!” ex¬ 
claimed Seth, shaking his fist; “ I would rather 
you’d taken the calf out of my stable, or the pig 
out of my pen. Didn’t wife plant that bush, 
and hasn’t it been growing these four years, and 
now it is all broken and ruined, and the flowers 
hang on that wretched carcass of a coal horse. 
It’s enuff to make a Christian swear to see la- 
locks and roses put to such a use. If there is 
any justice, you shall go to Har’ford jail.” 
There, you see, was the rub. Seth Twiggs 
got angry to very little purpose. There is no 
law that touches these vexatious trespasses upon 
flowers and fruit;—or if there is, we have no 
public sentiment to enforce it. The majority of 
the public, even in this Commonwealth, which 
I am bound to believe is head and shoulders 
above any other in this respect, have no taste foi 
flowers and the finer kinds of fruit, and they 
look upon the people who cultivate these things 
as lawful prey. Their own flower gardens are 
limited to a patch of bouncing bet and tanzy in 
the back yard, with may-weed and catnip in 
front; and as they do not attach any particular 
value to these things, they think their amiable 
neighbors who cultivate roses and flowering 
shrubs prize these just as little. ; They would 
as soon break down a moss rose in a neighbor’s 
yard, as a sweet briar growing by the road side. 
