Middletown transcript., 1897-10-30
Of Interest
to Farmers

THE ORCHARD.
There's flush on the cheek of the pippin and
peach,
And the first CLINT of gold on the bough of tht
beech;
The bloom from the stem of the buckwheat
is cut.
And there1l soon bea gap in the burr of The
nut,
Let all fruit ripen in the dark.
Do not prune until after the leaves fall.
Old superanuated apple trees breed Dor
ers; dig 'em out.
Watch sod orchard; it will begin to fail
before you know it.-PRoF. BAILEY.
Ifthere is a bad odor in the apple cellar
be sure you will eat il with your apples.
The close sorting of fruit has much to do
with the price it will bring. Fix up some
small, fancy baskets of the most beautiful
trim them with few of the fruit leaves,
ask fancy price for it, and see how quick
ly it will be paid.
Gather up all the old shoes you've been
stumbling over and plant them in the or
chard. Rake up the old useless tin cans,
pans coffeepots. stove-pipes, etc., and carry
them down and throw them in the gully
| in the hill side and strew brush over them.
Take nothing that can be used about the
place. Old buckets and pans come in quite
handy sometimes to give your neighbors
with fplants or other garden "truck" to
carry home. Save all the pieces of zinc and
brass, and the copper bottoms from tin
wash boilers, and old irons. and have a
substantial box to keep such things in un-
til they are used or sold.
Now do please keep your fruit cellar shut
from the outer air in the daytime, but open
cool nights. Otherwise your apples will all
be gone before we get around to help you
eat them.
1t may seem a pity, but cut back sharply
all young trees before setting them. and
you will gain time and trees. Cut off
smoothly any broken roots.
The peach growers greatest enemy is
not the yeIlows, nor the borer. nor rot, nor
FROST nor fungus, nor even the commission
man, said speaker before the Ohio State
Society. 1t is the Gull peach, which saps
the vitality Of the tree, breaks down the
market and generally breaks up the grower.
Gull fruit of all kinds should not only be
thinned for the tree sake; but also for the
sake Of the market says American Garden
ing.
Let any one who has acorns or hickory
nuts or walnuts on hand, place them at
once in slightly moist soil, keeping them in
it till the grou nd is in condition to work in
the spring, and the seeds will be in the best
possible condition. Get box and mix the
seed and soil together, placing the box in
some cool place free from frost. Both oaks
and hickories are hard to transplant, so are
walnuts. Amateurs who want but a plant
or two of a kind; would perhaps find the
placing of the nuts where they wish the
trees to be, as satisfactory q way as any.
Two or three could / e placed together, all
but the strongest TO be removed should
more than grow.
After picking the apples with the ut
most care 1 put them in boxes of equal
size, about six inches deep, without covers,
and large enough to handle easily. place
these boxes in an open shed, fill the boxes
not quite full and set them in piles so as to
make the second box cover the first, the
third the second, and so on until the pile
is as high as is convenient, and cover the
last box with board. I set these boxes
little one side Of directly over each other,
SO as to give little air. examine the
fruit frequently, and if there is any mois-
ture on the apples slip the boxes SO as to
give little more air; ifthe fruit is shriv-
eled in the least, I shut off all the air.
keep these boxes out of the cellar until |
there is danger of freezing, and then set |
them in the cellar and ventilate as before. |
In this way 1 can keep my fruit until it |
comes again.
A thing to be looked after now Is trees. |
If one is contemplating the planting of any |
fruit trees next spring. this is the time to |
order them. A tree set at the first favora-
BILE opportunity in spring will make double
the growth of one set the usual time they |
arrive from the nursery in spring. Get all |
the trees you desire to plant next spring |
on hand this month, or early next, and |
don't heel them in or plant them, but bury |
them. Dig trench eighteen inches deep
on one side. and sloping up to the surface /
of the ground four feet away on the other.
Trim the the trees exactly as you want them
when set out, and lay them side by side, as |
close together as they can be in the trench,
then shovel the earth on them, covering
them entirely over. or fcourse you will Sc
lect dry place for this-a place where wa
ter does not stand. When you lift them up /
in the spring you will find them aliye to
the very tips and ready to make a quick |
start and vigorous growth. This is good |
advice which we find in Farm and FiIe-
side. by T. GREINER.
As the fall comes on and the nights be-
come cooler. there is tendency to close
windows, th linking thereby to keep the I
flock more com mfortable at night. This is a |
move in the direction ofcoddling and will |
prove disastrous later.
All live stock need and can stand plenty
of fresh air. Fowls are no exception to this
general rule. Before the modern and re-
cent movement of giving fowls better ac-
commodations and care, their nature
taught them 10 roost in trees until very |
late in the fall, and in fact until driven to
shelter by extreme cold weather. They be-
came. under such conditions, much harder
and better able to stand t he steady cold Of
winter. Their nature has not changed in
this regard, and even the treasured speci-
mems for the fall an winter shows should
not be deprived Of plenty Of cool, even cold.
fresh air at night. Keep them free from
drafts and no harm can come from open
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