698 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Story of a Day 
Part I. 
The morning of May 6 opened dull and 
wet. For two days there had been a 
steady, dripping rain, and as I looked 
out of the window the clouds seemed to 
wear that mean, sullen look which the 
New Jersey sky sometimes assumes when 
things go wrong. The grass on the lawn 
was like a sponge, the bloom on the crab- 
apples was draggled, and there was a 
mud puddle in the low place back of the 
shed, l'et off to the east there came, as 
I looked, a little break in tbe clouds, and 
a long splinter of sunshine suddenly 
sparkled on tbe wet grass. It. looked as 
if some brighter life behind the cloud had 
ripped a finger through it and let a little 
happiness into the gloom. Well, there 
was plenty to do, and this sort of weath¬ 
er was just light for what wo had in 
band. For breakfast we had a good dish 
of oatmeal, pancakes and rhubarb sauce. 
I gave tip drinking coffee several years 
ago. About a pint of milk from the Jer¬ 
sey suits me well, I did want an extra 
pancake, and Mother fried one, as the 
poets might say, “with her own fair 
hands/’ When it came I found it about 
three inches in diameter. Surely a 
“lady's cake,” and not what one would 
usually set before a farmer. Perhaps 
this wet morning gives one of these rare 
occasions when the good lady thinks it 
might have been better if she had married 
a millionaire instead of one who is satis¬ 
fied with the life of a “fairly prosperous 
farmer.” 
* * * * * 
But no one will be "fairly prosperous” 
-—io say nothing of the millionaire part 
of it—if lie stays too long eating pan¬ 
cakes and drinking milk. There was 
work lo be done. This was just I lie day 
for planting trees and strawberry plants. 
There were 50 apple trees and some 2.000 
strawberry plants to go in, and this wet 
soil is just what they need. I would 
like to finish seeding the mils on that 
lower field by the brook, but it is too wet 
to work there. The hills are in better 
shape, so Rein harnesses Broker and 
Tom and starts with plow and harrow 
for one of the back fields, lie can carry 
tbe trees along with him. Cherry-top 
hitches Brownie to the light wagon and 
follows, taking Uncle George along with 
him. A young man like me needs exer¬ 
cise to give vent to surplus energy, so I 
will walk up the hill and through the or¬ 
chards. I would like to spend every hour 
of blooming time right among the trees. 
It is the most glorious season of the year. 
We have nearly .'1,000 trees growing, and 
I think I know every one of them by 
sight. They differ in habit and perform¬ 
ance almost as much ns the humans of 
any community will do. They seem to 
me like faithful friends—all except the 
Baldwins! This variety refuses to do its 
duly thus far. The trees are old enough 
and seem full of vigor, but they will not 
bloom as they ought to. This is their 
bearing year, but most of the trees show 
only a scattering bloom. The trees are 
grasping and greedy, but they will not 
start working. Alongside of them Grav- 
ensteins and Sutton show a perfect mass 
of bloom, but thus far my Baldwins must 
be called lazy dawdlers. A few of them 
have started working, just to show what 
the family is capable of doing, but most 
of them are disgracing their purebred 
Yankee heritage. I have stopped plant¬ 
ing Baldwins. There are too many drones 
In tbe family. 
* * * * * 
I cut across the top of the hill until I 
reached the Alabama orchard, where wo 
were to plant most of our trees. Our 
orchards are all named. This one is 
called Alabama because six of the chil¬ 
dren were burn in that State, and the first: 
trees planted in this held came from there. 
They were peach trees, and were root- 
pruned, after the Stringfallow plan. Now 
after all these years we are putting the 
orchard back into Elberta peaches and 
McIntosh apples, with a few Wealthy 
scattered through. This is to be Moth¬ 
er's orchard. She will have the income 
from the 800 peach and about 100 apple 
trees. She wanted Elberta peaches, 
though to my mind there are several finer 
varieties. This orchard has been han¬ 
dled as follows: Early in the year the 
ground was well plowed and harrowed. 
The soil is a warm loam and slopes so as 
to give good drainage. Then it was ac¬ 
curately marked with a plow so as to 
give squares 10 ft. each way. Of course 
I know that it good Elberta tree should 
have more room, but, there were some ap¬ 
ple trees left from a former planting, and 
these stood 82 ft. each way. So I planned 
to have the apples 82 ft. apart and the 
peaches as tillers 16 ft. each way. I 
bought little peach trees, small enough 
to he sent by mail. I prefer these little 
fellows, as we can :hape the head of 
such trees to better advantage. They 
were cut back to about 2 ft., with the 
roots well clipped, and planted in the cor¬ 
ners of our squares. Between two rows 
of apple trees comes a full row of peach 
trees, with a peach midway between each 
two trees in the apple rows. Then we 
planted potatoes in between the peach 
trees in their full rows, and u little later I 
we shall drill jn Luce’s Favorite corn, 
thickly seeded, four rows of corn between 
each two rows of trees. It will all be fer¬ 
tilized with chicken manure and chem¬ 
icals and, if possible, at the last cultiva¬ 
tion a mixture of rye and Alsike clover 
will be worked in, to be plowed under as 
green manure next, year, 
* * * * * 
When I reached Alabama I found 
Cherry-top and Uncle George just com¬ 
ing through the woods. Rein had gone 
to the adjoining orchard, “Black,” where 
be had started plowing for early toma¬ 
toes. This “Black” faces to the east. 
The soil is light and warm and trees of 
McIntosh apple and Kicffer pears are 
growing there. It seems the most desir¬ 
able place for early tomatoes. We have 
grown them on (be lower farm, but on 
that colder soil they have been too late to 
bring full prices. This year, with the 
frost, damage to the south of us, there 
ought to be something in the early crop, 
so we will “look unto the hills’’ and 
plant early on this sunny slope. Thomas 
came along to start the plowing and then 
went down to plant strawberries. Rein 
first harrowed the field. This broke down 
the rough places and raked off much of 
the weeds and foul grass. Tlrnu Broker 
and Tom started on their monotonous 
journey up and down the slope, turning 
the dark-colored, mellow soil bottom side 
up, with scarcely a touch of yellow in it. 
By this time The sun hud struggled 
through the clouds and the grass was 
rapidly drying. Several of the apple 
trees were dead. The mice girdled them 
two years ago, and we could not save 
them. They must come out. and have 
new trees in their places. They were 
not large, and Cherry-top thought it 
would be easy to strike a few blows with 
a. grub hoe and then pull them out. But 
he was not here when they were planted, 
and did not know how a root-pruned tree 
gets its lingers into the soil. The more 
be dug the more and deeper roots he 
found. So he got a chain and fastened 
it to the trunk of what seemed a small 
tree. Rein took the horses off the plow 
and hitched them to the chain. Tom 
tossed his head and sniffed as he looked 
at Broker. 
“What nonsense it is to take ns off the 
plow for such a puny job! Why Peter, 
the Shetland pony, could snake this little 
tree out, and ho is nearly 80 years old, at 
that.” 
But when the big horses started some¬ 
thing went wrong. They could nearly 
start the barn if well hitched to it, and l 
have seen them yank out a tree twice as 
large as this one. Yet with all their 
power they had to stop. It. took half a 
dozen twisting pulls to bring that tree 
out, and they seemed to look at its roots 
in wonder. Well they might. There was 
a bunch of big tap-roots going straight 
down, like the roots on clover or Alfalfa. 
You could see where the roots on that 
tree were cut back to stubs when it was 
planted. Instead of a single system of 
long roots, spreading out near the sur¬ 
face, there had grown from these short 
stubs a collection of tap-roots going 
straight down into the ground for many 
feet. The surface feeding roots had also 
developed, but. these tap-roots anchored 
that tree to tbe ground as though it had 
been spiked down. I wish some of those 
people who insist upon digging a big hole 
and getting down into it to spread out 
and guide the long roots on the nursery 
trees could have seen what Tom and 
Broker finally pulled out. These big 
grays will testify to the value of root- 
pruning. 
sjt 
We got right on with our planting. 
These McIntosh trees were “cut-offs.” In 
May 20, 1922 
most nurseries there will be trees which 
for some reason fail to start the hud or 
graft properly, or the growth may be 
poor. In that case, the growth will be 
cut off and a new bud put in. For some 
reason this second budding may fail, and 
the process will be repeated. The result 
is a tree with a root two or three years 
old, but with a one-year growth from the 
hurl. Most planters refuse to plant such 
trees. We have bad cases where growers 
made great complaint when such trees 
were sent, and claimed dainnges. Some 
of the finest trees in my orchards have 
grown front these "cut-offs,” and the 50 
we have to plant, this day are all of this 
class. By planting a little deeper than 
usual T think tbe older root will serve 
the tree better. 1 would not accept them, 
however, unless they were distinctly or¬ 
dered. My part of the tree planting job 
is to trim the little trees. While I do not 
pretend to be any expert at it, I know 
what I want the tree to look like when it 
goes into the ground. I cannot tell just 
how a tree should he trimmed, because 
you rarely see any two exactly alike. 
'While McIntosh has a characteristic 
shape of root, you cannot trim them alike. 
You must consider the amount, of wood 
you are to leave above ground, and also 
how the roots shape out from the main 
stem. 1 have heard people tell how care¬ 
ful you must be not to disturb any of the 
little feeding roots. That seems to me 
very close to nonsense, for after a tree 
has been dug and shipped from the nur¬ 
sery tiiese small feeding roots are dried 
up or dead. The tree must start out 
new feeding roots before it can be fully 
nourished. In cutting these yearling Mc¬ 
Intosh 1 clipped off the top to about 214 
ft. In some cases that meant cutting 40 
per cent. away. I do not care much 
about starling the crotch of a tree when 
it is planted. I can do that to better ad- 
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