Oie RURAL NEW-YORKER 
381 
bark from large trees for IS inches above 
ground. We have suffered less than most 
of the neighbors, as last Fall we cleaned 
up all trash around the trees, but it looks 
like 50 or more are ruined. We may save 
some of them by bridge-grafting, but I 
must confess that we have never fully 
succeeded with this. On the other hand, 
I find as the snow melts that the i-j-e and 
vetch have wintered well and are now 
starting. We must get the clover seed in 
soon. II. w. 
Contradictory Advice About Apples 
What are we young apple neophytes 
to do? We start to put out an orchard. 
Brackett of the United States Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture tells us to choose a 
northeastern exposure? Sears of Massa¬ 
chusetts recommends south to southeast. 
We begin pruning operations, and heavy 
pruning for young trees seems generally 
recommended; but Chandler of C'ornell 
stepc in on page >54 and advocates light 
pruning for young trees. This uue.xpected 
heavy Winter hits us, and nips a lot of 
our twigs. What shall we do with them? 
Professor Green of Minnesota prefers to 
wait until they leaf out; Bailey says cut 
out the injured wood while dormant. 
And when can this dormant pruning he 
done as regards cold weather? We have 
been taught not to make a cut in frozen 
wood: Bailey again says no damage is 
done. Many recommend cutting off the 
little limbs of a newly-set peach; others, 
as Profes.sor Lewis of Oregon says, leave 
one or two buds to the stub. Or even 
to go back to the .setting out again, shall 
we follow the usual method of root-i)run- 
ing or cut off all roots practically, like 
Stringfellow of Texas? The common im- 
l)ression is that pruning affects size of 
fruit, but Professor Oardiuer of Oregon 
in the December, .1017, number of ‘"Better 
I'mit.” attempts to prove that the efl’ect 
of in uuing upon size is ))ractically noth¬ 
ing. 
AVe undertake to supi)ort !Mr. Hoover 
by fiutilizing, bur before we reach the 
matter of jn-ofitaldeness, B. D. Anthony 
of the Geneva Sta‘ion recommends before 
th(> recent meet'ug of the New York 
Fruit Growers tVr.t “as a war measure'” 
no fertilizers or nutnures be applied to 
apple orchards in soil of average fer¬ 
tility. Why, we were just about to smear 
across our barns: “Kat an apple and s.-ive 
a biscuit.” Yet after all, do fertilizers 
pay? We must know that, or Profes.sor 
Warren is after us on cost accounting. 
Proof is pretty conclusive, as demon¬ 
strated, for example, by Professor Stew¬ 
art of Pennsylvrnia, that fertiliz-'rs do 
pay. But Brown of II(»od Biver finds 
little re.sponse on. silt soil from either 
potash or phosphoric acid, and our abov" 
(pioted Mr. Anthony shows that "JO ye.!rs' 
experiments with fertilizers at Genevii in¬ 
dicated very little increase from their 
use. Professor Stewart even says, in 
June, 1014, “Better Fruit,” to apply 
nitrate not earlier than petals f.ill nor 
later than .July 15: while Professor T.ewis 
in “Green’s American Fruit Grower.” 
.Tanuary, 1018, .says to apply a full mouth 
before bloom. 
Nothing is more critical than nuittc'rs 
of diseases, spraying, etc. We .stai-t in 
assiduously to cut out and disinfect 
blight, cankei-s on apple trees; but some¬ 
one (I have the clipping but not the ref- 
erenc*') tells us that blight i)asses the 
AVinter only on pears. Our little side 
line iieach orchard needs spraying. We 
undertake to dilute our self-boiled lime- 
sulphur. The 8-8-50 fonnula is followed. 
If we happen to pick up the Ohio bulletin 
we are told to dilute further; if we get 
hold of Sears no dilution is menthuied. 
Or, again, the former says for hard in¬ 
sects to dilute kero.sene emulsion with 
eight or 10 jiarts of Avater, while the 
latter suggests four or five. Somehow 
we get the impression that kerosene, or 
turpentine, or nitric acid, injures the 
bai"k of trees, and yet someone will pop 
up, like klason in the December “Better 
Fruit” of 1011, and say to thin our graft¬ 
ing wax Avith turpentine. 
And so it goes from choice of variety 
to tlie different methods of combating the 
peach horer, or the reliability of the 
frost-proof storage house. Does all this 
indicate that the apple really is the Gr- 
bidden fruit after all. or shall Ave call up 
the spirits of our ancestors for a little 
baptism of “common sense” to use in 
these contradictory instances and go opti¬ 
mistically on? AVHEET.ER J. AVF^r.DAY. 
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