Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-04-09
Horticultural DofeS
Pruning for Fruit.
By Frank Simons

conditions are changed. Natures
great pruning shears, the great
prairie fires and the overflows of
the Missouri river at the time of
breaking up in the spring, are past.
The great loads of native wild rfuit
that in early days could be found on
the river bottoms, in the coolies,
about the springs, in the gulches
and on the northern and northeast
ern slopes, are thing of the past.
Now all those fruitful patches are
dense thickets, with scarcely enough
moisture to sustain life. Anyone
expecting them to bear fruit has
delusion.
In the early days of North Dakota
there were periods of luxurious
growth, never less than five or more
than seven years. At the end of
these periods the great prairies were
covered with such blanket of dead
grass and vegetation as to prevent
mother earth from absorbing the
heat of the suns rays and retaining
it, to be given off during the night,
to meet the cold of space and stand
off an early frost, as is done by the
burnt prairie or cultivated lands.
At the end of this period an early
frost came and killed the grass and
other vegetation. The suns rays,
penetrating our clear atmosphere,
drying the frozen grass into finder.
There comes once each month a per-
iod of dry atmosphere which may be
accompanied by wind. Fires started
during these periods in the early
days burned our great prairies, way
up into British America. The heat
of these fires passing through these
fruit patches heated the sap of the
tree beneath the bark, killing the
trees and bushes. They were pruned
at the ground. New shoots sprang
! up, either from the base of the par
ent tree or bush, or from the roots,
In two or three years vigorous
shoots had taken the place of the
old dead trees and bushes. On this
, new wood grew large, fat, healthy
fruit buds for next years crop of
| fruit, that withstood the intense
cold Of winter and our drying winds.
Blossoms from these plump, healthy
fruit buds withstood the late frosts
and cold sleety winds of spring.
The fruit patches of wild plums,
cherries, juneberries, blueberries,
blackberries, highbush cranberries,
currents, gooseberries, black and red
respberries, strawberries and grapes,
under this severe pruning produced
loads of nice, large fruit, quite free
from the puckery, pungent, disagree
able taste of the small shriveled fruit
from the dense thicket.
The thick growth of vegetation,
that obstructed the rapid flow of
water from melting SHOWS and rains,
on every hillside, valley, coolie and
ravine, along the Missouri and it's
tributaries, having been burned away
the water flowed quickly into the
river causing it to run and break up
early in March, before the ice had
melted. This thick, heavy ice block
ed and damned the river at every bend
! causing the overflow of the bottom
lands. The moving ice cut off and
broke down the fruit patches on the
bottom lands. There fruit patches
were quickly replaced by a new, Wig
orous growth that was soon bending
with the loads of fruit.
In the early days Of North Dakota
those old settlers learned from sad
experience that an orchard fruit
garden or home on the bottom lands
was sure to be destroyed by the in
vading ice. AS the great prairie
fires are thing of the past, in the
future the ice will rot away and
move out in April. In the future a
home grown orchard or fruit garden
in the higher bottom lands will be