66 
THE APPLE. 
the wants of the fast swelling apples. But in the case of cordons, 
pyramids, and bushes the roots are often cramped into small areas, and 
also kept very near to the surface. The drought speedily tells upon 
them and cuts off their supplies, and the fruits are arrested in growth. 
These forcible stoppages for lack of water not only lessen size, but lower 
quality. They are a chief cause of grittiness and largeness and hardness 
of core. It is therefore most important to water apples during dry 
weather; house sewage or other manure water is admirably adapted 
for this purpose, the roots being thus simultaneously watered and fed. 
It is also good practice to sprinkle the swelling apples overhead on the 
evenings of bright days. This is easily done in the case of small trees 
or choice apples on espaliers or walls. In cases, too, where a water main 
passes near to an orchard, a hydrant, hose, and spreader would speedily 
give all, the apple trees a most invigorating cleansing shower, which 
would help the small apples to swell fast into large ones. A powerful 
garden engine would reach to the tops of most apple trees, and would 
pay as a preventive or remover of insects during droughts, as well as 
promote the swelling of the fruit. 
But the roots should be fed as well as watered during the swelling of 
the apple crop. Nothing is so useful for this as a mulching of good dung 
on the surface of the soil. From Sin. to Gin. of sheep’s, pigs’, or cows’ 
manure spread over the surface of the roots of apples—the strength being 
watered in either by the rains or artificially—will swell off the crop 
to full size better than any other prescription whatever. Of course, 
apples planted on good rich soils will swell off many a crop to creditable 
dimensions in average seasons without any such extraneous aids to 
growth. But on poor soils, and in the case of small trees heavily laden 
with fruit, or in others where the utmost limits of size attainable by 
varieties is desiderated, these root and overhead waterings and manurial 
mulchings will be found of the highest service. 
I 
III—Ripening. 
The ripening of the crop must be accomplished by the tree and the 
weather. The cultivator may hinder, but do little to help, it. From the 
time fruit reaches full size, all stimulating treatment, such as recom¬ 
mended during the swelling period, must cease, and unless the drought 
should be unusually severe, no water must be applied to the roots. 
Should the leaves overlie the fruit very much, a few of them might be 
removed. Occasionally, too, the breast or young wood, if stopped too 
early in the season, may have made a second growth, which may partly 
