The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-02-04
Orchard Experiences.

uloNuSoCNs Dub OliOh9 W.
think, from too narrow and local eX-
perience. In southern Maine, for in
stance, nearly all fruit-growing farmers
habitually denounce root-grafted and
budded trees as worthless; and
"New York trees" even from the best
nurseries, are looked upon as frauds all
over northern New England. 1t is
needless to say that this is unjust; but
nevertheless the feeling exists, is very
widespread, and has its basis in what
is supposed to be fair and very gen
eral experience.
The approved method of propagating
apple trees in southern Maine is to
grow seedlings in a nursery up to four
or five years, select the most thrifty for
planting in orchard, set them out, and
three or four years later tOp-work them,
by grating, or budding in the limbs.
This produces tree that satisfies the
requirements of that region, and the
same process is in vogue in all southern
New England, though low worked
trees are not much objected to in Mas
sachusetts, Connecticut or Rhode
Island
In northern New England and the
Eastern Provinces of Canada, the case
is again quite different. Here expert
ence has shown that not one apple seed
ling in hundred, grown from seeds of
fruit brought from lower New England,
will survive the test winters. In these
sections root-grafted or very low budded
trees have exclusive preference, upon
quite as valid grounds of experience as
top-worked trees in southern Maine. If
working is ever successful in the
"Cold North" it must be a double
working,-the stocks being first root
grated or low-budded to some iron
clad" variety, and then re-worked III
the branches after they have been es-
tablished in the orchard. To many
readers it may appear strange that such
diverse views should prevail over what
may seem not very wide extent of
country. The extent is greater, how
ever, than many suppose; the extreme
distance between the st. Lawrence
river and Long Island Sound covering
between seven and eight degrees of lati-
tude, with difference in winter climate
as great as between New Jersey and
South Carolina.
In the apple-growing region of Maine,
extending but little more than fifty
miles back from the seat coast, apple
seedlings from homegrown seed are
usually hardy enough to be used, in
the orchard, for top-working success
fully such varieties as the Baldwin,
Rhode Island Greening, Northern Spy
and RoXbury Russet, which are the
leading commercial apples of that sec
ton. Not one of these apples, nor of
such fall varieties as Gravenstein and
Porter, are hardy enough, except quite
near the coast of western Maine, to en-
dure the climate, when worked low.
So grown, the young trees suffer in the
trunk from the hard winters, and be-
come unsound and improbable in a
very few years. This explains why
"New York trees" have so bad a
name there; and the same is the case
with the strip of country of about equal
width extending west from Maine to
Lake Champlain.
South of this belt, in southern New
Hampshire and Vermont and in the
three lower states, low-worked trees
are again available. The only other
section where the conditions of south.
ern Maine are encountered is in the
upper Champlain valley. Here, again
the great commercial apples named
must be tOp-worked, to be enduring
But elsewhere in northern New Eng.
land, and in the Provinces, climate
is reached in which not even top
worked Baldwins, Greetings, ETC., car
endure the winter. Here an entirely
different class of apples is called for,
and the i'll repute of" New York trees .
is due, not to the way they are worked
but to the tenderness OF the varieties
offered. Root-grafted or low-buddet
Oldenburghs, Wealthys, ETC., succeed
well; and were it not for the misrepre
sensations or the ignorance of thos,
nurserymen who are sending ont suCl
insufliciently hardy kinds as Mann
Pewaukee or Wolf River, New Yorl
root-grafted trees of the ironclad
varieties would find a large marke
there. In fact, considerable quantities
of New York grown, Oldenburghs, TIE
tofskys, Wealthys, Scott's Winters ant
Yellow Transparents are now sold there
although the dealers, well aware of tn
old and strong prejudice, declare then
to be home grown.