Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-05-04
Fruit and Fruit Trees.
SOME PLAIN TALK BY AN OLD FARMER.


Whatsoever We do, do it WE'LL Not one.
half of the fruit trees that have been set
out in Massachusetts during the last fifty
years have produced anything like profit
to the owners.
In the first place, the ground is not suit
able for the growth and production of
fruit. All land which has for its subsoil
sand or loose gravel, is not fit for the
growth of the apple or pear. II may be
good grass or lawn land, but it lacks the
essential elements necessary to the produc-
ton of this fruit. 1t needs "hard pan
or clay subsoil.
If your orchard is to be on field land,
cultivate it two years before setting out
the trees, and keep it under cultivation for
six years, seeding it down no oftener than
is necessary to kill weeds.
Trim ming trees After experimenting
for a number of years and trimming every
month in the year to ascertain when the
wound would heal best, | have come to
the conclusion that, from the twenty fth
of May to the twenty-ffth of June was the
proper time. Then is the full how of sap
and the wound begins to heal immedi,
year are March and April, and yet, you
may see on any bright day now, the farm
ers in their orchards busy trimming. They
had much better he in the house reading
some good agricultural or horticultural
paper.
Another point is this. Let u boy 90 over
your apple-trees in the middle of August
and, with his hands, pull off the young
sprouts that have just begun to grow. He
will do more with his hands than five men
can do with their saws the next spring.
The benefit derived from this mode of
treatment is two fold-the wound heals at
once and no sprouts start the following
spring, but if left number of sprouts
will start " here otherwise there would be
but one.
Success means, doing everything just at
the right time.
rwenty.six years ago sold my farm to
Henry II Peters, and have the vanity to
believe that left him the best apple or
chard of two thousand trees in Worcester
county. Where are they to-dayP One,
half of them are cut down or dug up after
being ruined by canker- worms and i'll
care, and the other half is worth but very
little
On my present farm | have an orchard
of two acres. Seventy-tive trees have been
set out twenty-five years. The canker
worm visited my neighbours orchard about
eight years ago. All told me should be
unable to avoid them, The first year
when the ends of the limbs were little
red | took warning and prepared for bat
tie. put strips of paper about eight
inches wide around them, and in the fall
begun putting on the tree ink | caught
Il few slugs that fall. The next spring
meant business and believe l got it, too.
Slugs lay around the trunks of my trees
in ridges three inches deep. After falling
from the ink they were unable to crawl.
So thoroughly caught them, that the next
year did not catch from the seventy five
trees, one slug to n tree.
| was going to let my papers remain
around the trunks of the trees for the next
spring, but in taking off one of them in
August found a number of borers Just
penetrating the bark. They were about
the size OF small maggots. took all the
papers off and found hundreds of them
concealed in the bark.
AS have travelled over the state during
the last fifty years, and have seen trees in
grass lands which have stood for wears
without any cultivation, without growth
untrimmed, eaten by worms, have come
to the conclusion land you would do the
>ame) that not one half the trees that have
been set out during the last fifty years have
yielded anything like profit to the owners.
My next subject will be-Fruit its Profit
and Loss -Peter Fdy.