HOUSE AND GARDEN 
146 
April, 1910 
ard sorts can be 
kept very low¬ 
headed by vig¬ 
orous pruning. 
One year-old 
peach trees are 
the sort to set 
out, but before 
they are placed 
in the ground 
they must be 
cut back to plain 
stems two feet 
long. The best 
sorts for family 
use are: Early 
Rivers, a white 
peach, juicy and 
of exquisite 
aroma, ripening as early as August, and Elberta, a well known 
yellow sort, good for the table as well as for preserving. 
Plums and peaches should be set out two to three feet farther 
apart than the dwarf trees. The pruning of peaches is different 
from the other sorts. Before they bear, prune tops low, about 
half the wood of last year’s growth, but cease this the season they 
start to fruit, as bear in mind that the fruit of peaches comes on 
last year’s growth of wood. After they reach bearing age, cut 
out suckers, crowded branches and all the old wood already 
fruited the tree can stand. This will drive the sap in young 
wood, and a good crop is assured every year. 
The quince, though not a popular fruit, is one that must not 
Red Raspberries like this are one of the 
finest of home-grown table fruits, and 
ought to be found in every garden, 
large or small 
be overlooked. It requires a deep rich soil, and the trees should 
be well mulched with thoroughly rotted stable manure. Plant 
quince trees not less than ten feet apart. The Champion variety 
bears a fine quality of tender fruit and bears very young. 
Berry bushes, as well as fruit trees, are subject to diseases, 
which have to be combated. “Leaf Blight,” “Rust” and, on 
peaches and plums, “Brown Rot” are the most common fungus 
diseases which, fortunately, are recognized. Bordeaux mixture 
is the great all-around fungicide, and may easily be applied with 
a small hand spray-pump in the home garden. For use in small 
quantities it is as well to buy Bordeaux mixture of the standard 
formula in concentrated form from some seed store. It comes thus 
in cans holding from one to ten gallons. For ordinary use one 
gallon of this paste is dissolved in twenty gallons of water before 
it is ready for the spray-pump. If used on plums or peaches while 
in foliage, the solution should be 50 per cent weaker, otherwise 
leaves will be burned. By adding six ounces of Paris Green to 
every fifty gallons of diluted Bordeaux mixture, all insects which 
bite the leaves or fruit can be killed with the same application, 
but care must be taken in using Paris Green anywhere. 
A first-class knapsack spray pump may be bought from 
almost any dealer for $8 or $10, which price should include 
six feet of hose with nozzle. It makes an ideal pump for 
home use. An extension rod for higher trees can be added 
for 11.50. 
Fruit trees should be sprayed three times every spring. First 
when the buds are swelling, then when leaves are sprouting out, 
the last application being made after the blossoms have fallen. 
Never spray while the trees are in bloom; it kills the bees and you 
will have no fruit. Trees affected by San Jose Scale (a mite of 
an insect which burrows itself into the smooth bark and twigs 
of trees) is easily recognized in winter by the rough, ashy surface 
of the bark. Get a few pounds of whale-oil soap, two pounds of 
which dissolve in one gallon of hot water and apply it, warm, 
with a brush, to the trunk and larger branches of any tree affected. 
Spray the tops with this same solution. The chemical action of 
the potash in the soap will dissolve the armor of the scale, and 
free the tree from this pest. 
Home-grown fruits have come to be the delight of every 
home gardener, and the old-time idea that they require more 
care than they are worth never lingers long in the mind of those 
who test the matter. 
The formation wanted for dwarf fruit 
trees is the vase-shape 
Blackberries of quality are one of the most sat¬ 
isfactory breakfast-table fruits 
Wall-grown fruits take up little room and are in¬ 
teresting to cultivate 
