■Uhe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
855 
tJaby Trees Bearing Fruit 
A lioston mail-order house not long ago 
ofi'ered “l.()00 fruit trees at the bearing 
age at 40 cents each.” 
"These are trees which have been al¬ 
lowed to grow in nur.series until they are 
old enough and big enough to bear fruit, 
liach of these trees has been especially 
selected and cared for during the years it 
has grown in the nurseries. The growers 
assure us they will bear this year, provid¬ 
ed vou follow these simple directions care¬ 
fully 
The ^‘Directions.’’' 
“Cut off about six inches of the limb 
growth, prune off bruised ends of roots, if 
any. make a smooth cut. dig hole deep 
enough so that the tree will be buried to 
the same depth as when standing in the 
nursery row, or up to the collar—soak 
roots in water one-half hour, pl.ace trees 
in hole, fill in one-fourth, tread well: an¬ 
other one-fourth, tread well : the third 
niie-fourth. tread well: then finish filling 
.•ind tread firmly so that when the tree is 
set it would require a strong man to pull 
it out.” 
Is it possible that such trees will bear 
the year they are set out? J. u. 
From the description we concluded 
these were apples worked on dwarf stock, 
as is often done. The following opinions 
indicate the possibility of such planting: 
While I have not seen these trees at 
all. the understanding is that a certain 
nursery in New York is offering what 
they call bearing-age fruit trees. These 
are undoubtedly, as you say. grafted on 
dwai’f stock and from three to five years 
old. so that it would be possible if they 
were carefully moved with jilenty of soil 
about the roots, from the nursery to their 
permanent quarters, to get them to bear a 
little fruit the first year. Fnder the con¬ 
ditions of handling through the stores, it 
would be absolutely impossible to get 
them to produce the first year. 
WILFRIU WIIFELER. 
Some varieties of apples, like the Bis- 
m;irck. Yellow Transparent. Wealthy, and 
a few others are very precocious bearers, 
and it is possible to force the trees into 
bearing when but four years from the 
graft, and but five or six feet in height. 
Such sized trees are convenient for a 
nurseryman to handle, and can usu.ally 
be obtained from most nurserymen, at 
jiinces considerably below the cost of 
growing, as they comprise the left-over 
stock, which is seldom wanted by the 
planters, .since they have found that a 
two-year-old tree will come into profit- 
aide bearing much sooner. But the bear¬ 
ing surface of the.se forced trees is so 
small that they have very little value ex¬ 
cept as a novelty, and as an illustration 
of what it is j)ossibb> for the horticulturist 
to do. It is j)ossible for a skilful gar¬ 
dener to remove such a tree from Wie 
ground in very early Spring and reset it 
in a nearby location so skilfully that it 
will suffer no check in its development, 
but will bear its fruit as though it had 
not been disturbed. But it is not j^ossihle 
to take such a tree from the ground, pack 
it for shipment, put it into cold storage, 
send it a long distance and reset it. with¬ 
out giving it such a check that its fruit 
buds will change themselves into leaf 
buds and produce no fruit, unless, pos¬ 
sibly. it has been grown in a box. or tub. 
in which case the cost of growing will far 
exceed the price of 40 cents, which is 
asked. The nurseryman can exhibit trees 
showing a full comi)lement of fruit si)urs 
and well-developed fruit buds, indicating j 
that the tree will bear fruit if undis- ! 
turbed. but he cannot deliver them to a 
customer, by any ordinary method of dig¬ 
ging and packing, in such a condition that 
the promi.ses of the tree will stand one 
chance in ten thousand of being fulfilled. 
Br.actically and commercially it is an im- 
jiossibility to transplant apple trees in 
such a manner that they will produce 
fruit during the same season. 
Vermont. c. o. ou>rsHEE. 
My experience with bearing-a'-.e ti'ees 
has not been .satisfactory, and this is 
confirmed by others here. ^Ve do not find 
that anything is gained in fruiting. I 
Imve tried a number and want no more. . 
There comes a time when you cannot rip 
out a tree without doing excessive dam¬ 
age to its roots. I should prefer one- 
year-olds to four. The ju-oposed cutting 
back would accomplish nothing unless 
fruit spurs had formed last year. It 
strik(*s me that the claim is on a par 
with those of certain writers in certain 
agricultural (?» papers, describing or¬ 
chards where $300 i»er acre can be taken 
from apple trees “the third year after 
.setting." Such stuff tires me, for it hurts 
. the industry. You can buy “good bearing- 
:ige trees" for 10 cents, because of the 
great surplus, and the necessity for clear¬ 
ing them out of the ground. I shall con¬ 
tinue to stick to old-fashioned two-year- 
olds and find the comfort of living with 
them. GKO. M. TWITCHELL. 
This looks to me like a very doubtful 
proposition. I do not think that trees 
which would produce fruit the same year 
as planted could be sold at any such price, 
because of the fact th,at such trees would 
have to be grown for at least six or eight 
years in a nursery and carefully root 
pruned, and when shipped would have to 
tie either tubbed or sacked with a ball of 
earth around them and could not be sold 
at any such price. 
Trees are sometimes sold in tubs which 
are set in the ground and will produce 
fruit the year following setting. These 
trees, however, are for the purpose of 
catering to a rich man’s fad rather than 
to practical fruit growing. 
It is possible that very small trees on 
Paradise stock might develop fruit buds, 
which, if carefully planted, might pro¬ 
duce one or two apples the first year after 
planting: however. I should expect that 
the shock of transplanting would cause 
any blossoms that developed to fail to 
set fruit, and therefore believe that it 
would be quite difficult for any firm to 
substantiate the claims Avhich you set 
forth have been made. 
B. D. VAX BUREX. 
Destroying Artichokes 
R. W. B.. Madison Co., N. Y’^.. wants to 
know how to destroy artichokes. I de¬ 
stroyed the plants on my farm by digging 
them up. There is a time when the old 
tubers^ are past growing and the new 
tubers'are not formed, the time when the 
artichokes are in bloom. I dug mine with 
a four-tined g.arden fork by pushing the 
fork down by the side of the plants and 
then pulling them up by hand. If he 
waits until they are in bloom and plows 
them under he will kill most of them. 
What few come up the next year he can 
dig up when they are in bloom, and that 
will finish them. w. s. 
Lyndonville, N. Y. 
Rose Bugs and Chestnut Blight 
A reader in Pennsylvania .states that he 
has discovered the cause of the dreaded 
chestnut blight, and he sends specimens 
of the insect which he knows is causing 
that trouble, and samples of the larviie. 
The specimens were sent to Dr. J. T. 
Headlee of the New Jersey Station, and 
he reports: 
“The specimens enclosed by your cor- 
I’espondent are apparently nothing Tiiore 
nor less than examples of the common rose 
bug. Macrodactylus subspiuosus P’ab. The 
work on the foliage is quiti' characteristic 
of this species except in so far as any in¬ 
sect with similar lieibits might come in 
contact with infected trees and then fly to 
uninfected trees, carrying spores of the 
blight. The rose bug is surely not to be 
blamed for the chestnut bark disease. If 
the planting is of such a nature as to ren¬ 
der the application of self-boiled lime- 
sulphur practicable, a prompt applica¬ 
tion of a thorough coating to the foliage 
as soon as the ro.se bug begins to appear 
on it Avill stop the injury. Ordinarily one 
treatment with this material is sufficient 
to give protection.”^Tl0^fAS J. I£EAI)LEe. 
Poison Ivy and Robins 
I notice in a recent i.ssue of your paper 
an article on poison ivy. As I also suffer 
from its poisonous effect and am glad to 
help others, I wish to give yoti a simple 
remedy that was given me by a i)hysician, 
and which I have never seen mentioned. 
It is the “oil of goldenrod." It is just 
rubbed on with the finger. 
I also notice that you are looking un¬ 
favorably on the protection of the robin. 
I am a member of the Audubon Rociet.v, 
and believe in the protection of birds, but 
I am commencing to doubt the benefit de¬ 
rived from the robins. They do not leave 
me a single cherry, jind they take a piece 
out of the first ripe strawberry. We are 
told that they destroy noxious wee<ls by 
eating their seed: they certainly eat the 
seeds, but they do not digest them all, 
and void the undigested seeds in a fine con¬ 
dition for growth, and con.sequently fill 
the ground with poison ivy plants. I 
have seen their nest in the same tree that 
was infested with the tent caterpillar, but 
I have never seen them destroy one. I 
do not doubt that your article will bring 
out some one to defend them. s. b. .s. 
Setauket, R. I. 
The Thieving Robin 
I want to add my experience with 
robins to those given on page 75V2. When 
the United States took my home last 
September for Camp Merritt I at once 
set about making a strawberi\v bed at 
my new home, and by September lit had 
300 of the finest Brandywine and Mar¬ 
shall I ever raised, growing beautifully. 
On May 25 they were loaded with berries, 
of which I got less than one quart, while 
the robins got what would have been 50 
at least, if allowed to ripen. I .shall surely 
use a shotgun next year. A. C. W. 
Northern New Jersey. 
UNHAM 
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