The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-12-21
ORCHARD HINTS.
Selecting Trees-PrdnIng, Planting and
CuitiVatinS.

Selecting Trees-PrdnIng, Planting and
Cuitivating.
Experience in planting and managing
orchards is slowly acquired, writes T. L.
Lyon in Orange Judd Farmer, be-
cause results develop tardily. Thus
comparatively few find opportunity to ap-
ply experience in subsequent paintings.
Many of the very best and most profit
able varieties are Of slow, slender or
struggling habit of growth, so much so
that straight, stocky trees of many
kinds can not be grown under the usual
nursery practice. Oblivious of this
fact, the inexperienced planter demands
large, straight, high, well-branched
trees-not infrequently in securing
these rejecting valuable varieties, and
accepting those less desirable and profit
able.
There is no reason why the nursery
man should not, and might not, grow
such EXCEPTIONALLY crooked or slender
varieties as Roxbury Russell and Rhode
Island Greening, Early Joe and Red
Canada, either by artificial training or
by double working on straight-growing,
vigorous stocks, demanding and receiv-
ing therefor an increased price COM
mensurate with the increased expense.
The various classes of fruit trees are
graded in price in accordance with the
cost of producing them. Why, then,
should not the numerous varieties Of
pear and apple trees be also graded in
price to correspond with the relative
cost of growing them up to the regula-
ton size and form? To accomplish this
in actual practice requires little more
than a definite general agreement
herence thereto. 1t can scarcely be
doubted that tree planters would come
to recognize the justice of this, and
that its ultimate bearing upon the selec-
ton of varieties in orchards would be
favorable.
The Westward and Southwark trend
of emigration has brought with it the
practice of the East in the planting and
management of orchards; and it has cost
many years Of expensive experience in
order to convince the majority of Or
chard planters that Eastern practice
must bo much modified to adapt it to
the environments of the West, with its
bright, fervid sun, and its fierce, drying
winds. Toguard against the above influ-
ences the advice not infrequently given
is to set orchard trees inclining south
west, with the apparent expectation that
the prevalence of winds from that direc-
ton will gradually right them.
There would be little objection to
such advice could we be sure that the
degree Of inclination would always, or
even generally, be such that the force
of the wind would in each case just suf-
flee to bring the tree up to the perpen-
dicular by the time the occasion for such
inclination shall have passed. To such
advice, however, we demur; and, as
counteryailing advice, we suggest the
purchase and planting Of maiden lone
year, trees, and cutting them back at
planting to not more than one or two
feet Cutting upright growers lowest),
thus causing them to branch so low that
sun-scald and borers will be effectually
prevented, and that the wind can have
little leverage upon them until a
borough hold upon the soil shall enable
them to resist 1t, and thus permanently
maintain their perpendicular.
1t should also be borne in mind that
the advice so persistently given by ex-
perts, trained under the milder suns Of
Old England, ''to thin out tho branches
and let in the sun and hair" is in our
more dry and fervid climate to be ac-
cepted cum grano sails; and that instead
of trimming up the main branches, as is
too commonly done, they should be kept
we'll clothed with subsidiary branches
and fruit spurs; cutting away merely
such shoots as are likely to cross or
seriously interfere with each other.
This will usually be found to afford a
sufficiently open head, while at the same
time the central branches will be suf.
ficiently shaded.