Litchfield enquirer., 1874-11-26
Apple Culture.

Apple Culture.
 The New York Evening Post publish es the following interesting letter to a member of an Agricultural club ill that city regarding the culture of the apple:
 Yesterday chanced to see a paper containing your remarks on that noblest and best best fruit, the apple. was rais- ed on farm, and there lived until was thirty. made the apple my hobby to some extent, hence can speak from experi- ence. I indorse all you say. There is, however, another side to the question or rather, Anore to be said. The decline is not all from neglect. will give you some idea of my views in short, broken sentences. Now that the soil is older, a tree will not grow as we'll as when tEe soil was new, or newly cleared; hence, much more care is required than formerly. True, the trees now die from neglect, but they probably receive as much care as ever; we fail to see what would do we'll once is now insufficient Thus it is that the farmer reads with disdain your re- marks on neglect, for he will say that his trees were never better cared for. Itnever dawns upon him that he must advance 6 step or two. Trees will not do we'll on fiat land, especially if moist or wet. The apple and the goat much prefer the hill side. For time the young tree does we'll, but the heart becomes dark, then darker. then almost black; the skin. or bark becomes rough, the leaf is dull, and the tree dies. All the care in the world will not long save tree on such soil. The only way is to keep planting. Oh! of course the tree with care will outlive two or three generations of trees with no care. The one grand, chief cause of decay is grafting. In old times trees were not grafted and lived to good old age. I know trees that have been bearing near one hundred years. When the limb is cut to graft, it bleeds, and the blood of tree is death. The graft lives, and the limb looks smooth and well, but the blood in- side sours and the heart rots. Gut the most healthy limb and you will find a bunch of rotten matter at the base of the graft. That rot increases, never grows Less. and in no long time the tree dies, dies of broken heart The grace of God could not save it (without the crea- ton of new laws). It is not we'll to trans- plant treess they do not grow that year, and the sap may sour and darken the heart; if so. the tree will suffer. Men do Q foolish thing when they buy trees to transplant. The way to do when you want an orchard is to buy barrel of ap- ples-good ones; good, sound, healthy apples; apple with good blood in them; apples that belong to good families. If you wanted to raise lot of good, nice, healthy men, you would not go to the Five points for the seed. Having bought ha nokk Al z fruits of your labor, but SOW the seeds, and plant them, five in a place where you want yonr trees. The rapidity with which they grow will astonish all who have not tried it. Standing alone in the sweet sum- light, the grow in one year to fine little trees. When about as large as your small finger cut and graft all five as near the ground as possible. The tree is then small, and the rot so near the root, that it is thrown out, or, as medical men say. 'sloughed off, Us that the term) The heart of the tree is not affected, because it is all new, and the tree is all new, even from the root. An ungrafted tree upon a hillside will live one hundred years, more or less, and a tree grafted as I describe will live about as long. I said plant five seeds in a place. This is simply to give the power of selection. Save the best the second year after grating, and cut down the other four. In this way you get sound tree. and much sooner than in the usual way. An apple tree should be on the side of a hill, and if a rocky hill, it should be on the northside. 4 tree will live much longer, probably twice as long, on the north as on the south side. The reason IS that the saI starts too soon on the south slope, and g cold night proves its ruin; whereas on the north side the sap does not stars until very warm weather. The apple of the north is much superior to that of the south slope. It is harder, frmer, has more character, ripens, and will keer months after it's southern brother has gone to decay. The fruit, you know, oi the South is soft and worthless in com. parison with that of the North. We see this same law in apples of the different states. The Western apple is soft, ripens early and decays early. and is vastly in. ferior to the same apple in Maine or New Hampshire. An apple raised on the north side of high hill in Maine is like stone when harvested, in mindwinter is much superior to the soft apple of the West. The apples for winter and for shipping must come from the rocky hills of New Hampshire and Maine, for the beautiful fertile lands of the South and West can. not compete. irfG crrrtHsx1.FI
 Maine holds the key to great wealth ir this direction, but she does not know it What you say about the care of trees is al true. and I wonder that you should know so much on that subject. The tree mus have sun and air In an orchard, the tree around the eoutside are twice as large sals fruitful as those in the interior. I klley a man who planted his trees so near eacl other that one hundred trees did not rais, one hundred bushels per year. Grass i very injurious-I can't see why, but knov the fact There is no exception to thi rule. If the tree bleeds in grating, it vii kill the bark wherever it touches-sur death. Wherever the bark is thus killed the curculjo will get in. He cannot b' kept ont, and the tree is spoiled. sail plant good seed. This does not meal healthy seed simply. If you graft Bald win apple into a good natural tree, ant also into e s0ur. mean tree, you get tn, Baldwin apple from both, to be sure, bu one is much superior to the other. Tn most stupid man can understand that tn, natural sour sap must -affact the apple but farmers never think of it.