The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-12-21
ORCHARD HINTS.
Selecting Trees-Prumng, Planting ANT
Cu1tivating.

1
Cu1tivating.
Experience in planting and managing
orchards Is slowly acquired, writes L. T..
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, stoclky 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 obiectionably 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-
tion size arg form? To accomplish this
in actual laactice requires little more
than definite general agreement
among nurserymen and an honest ad-
| herence thereto. 1t can scarcely be
doubted that tree planters would come
to recognize the justice of this and
that it's 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 1t has cost
many years of expensive experience in
order to convince the majority of or
chard planters that Eastern practice
must be 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-
tion 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
countervailing advice, we suggest the
purchase and planting of maiden Zone
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 it, 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, ito thin out the 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
well clothed with subsidiary branches
and fruit spurs; cutting away merely
Such shoots no 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-
ticiently shaded.