Part 31

We have practised sowing salt under fruit-trees with decided advantage. If one pound of saltpetre be added to every six pounds of salt, it will be yet better. We sow enough to make the ground look moderately white, and prefer to do it in wet weather.

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The most salable butter, quality being equal, is that which is neatest done up. There is a great deal in the _looks_ of a thing. You’ll always find it so.

RENOVATING PEACH-TREES.

The peach-tree inclines to thicken at the top, the small inside branches die, and are removed by every neat cultivator. As the branches shoot up, this tree is disposed to abandon its lower branches, and, like the vine, to bear on the wood the farthest from the root, _i. e._ the young and new wood. In a few years the tree has a long-necked trunk, sometimes several of them; while the weight of foliage and fruit is situated so as to act like a power applied to a lever; and as the fruit grows heavy, or a storm occurs, the tree is broken down. We have practised the following method with success. In the month of July we saw off the top of one half of the tree, leaving about ten or twelve feet of stem, measuring from the ground. New shoots will now put out along the whole trunk; a part of these should be rubbed off, according to the judgment of the cultivator, leaving such as will give symmetry to the tree, _and form a head low down_. The second year, these branches will bear fruit, and the other side may then be treated in the same way.

This new head will require little meddling with for about four years. At this time, or whenever the tree is outrunning itself, the same process is to be renewed. But this time the tree will be composed of a multitude of smaller branches, instead of two or three main ones as at first. Some of these should be wholly cut out, and the wound smeared with a residuum of paint, or a thick white paint, or grafting wax, or anything that will exclude the air while the cut is granulating. The others are to be cut within, say, five inches of the old, original wood—leaving, thus, a stem of mere stumps. If the branches are taken entirely off, leaving only the oldest wood, the buds which would break from it would not be as healthy or vigorous as those which will spring from the stumps of the later branches.

Probably twenty or thirty whips will come to each stump; these should from day to day be reduced in number, until, at last, all are removed but one, and that one should, if possible, spring from the nearest point where the stump joins the old stem. When this new branch is obtained and fairly established, remove the stump with a fine saw, so as to leave the new branch, as nearly as possible, in the place of the old one. We remove the whips from a stump gradually in order to give the tree the advantage of their leaves as long as it can be done without interfering with the branch or branches which we are training out.

This method is to the peach what pruning is to the grape. The tree is kept in hand instead of sprawling abroad, a prey to its own weight and to storms; there is always a plenty of young wood for the fruit, which can be easily reached when one thins out, or gathers for use.

One of our trees taught us this method of its own accord in the summer of 1843. The weight of fruit was so great that we applied a prop to the middle of the branch; in a few days the branch broke short off at the point of the prop. It so happened that the three main limbs on one side of the tree acted in this manner. That same fall a strong growth of new wood shot out, and the next season I had on _that side_ as fine a top as ever I had on any peach-tree.

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Every farmer who expects his wife to make good butter, after furnishing her with some good, well-fed milk cows, should provide her with good milk-pans—large and shallow, so as to present a large surface for the cream to rise on, and enough of them to hold all her milk, and allow it to remain undisturbed long enough for all the cream to rise. These pans should be nicely washed every time the milk is emptied out of them, and always be clear and bright when filled.

AN APOLOGUE OR APPLE-LOGUE.

Two men planted out each one hundred apple-trees. In six or seven years they began to bear. One had spared no pains to bring his orchard into the highest condition. He had constantly cultivated the soil about them, scraped off the rough bark, washed them with urinated soap, picked off every worm and nursed them as if they had been children. The other, pursuing a cheaper plan, simply let his trees alone; but the moss, and canker-worms took his place and attended to them every year. When the orchards began to bear, the careful man had the best fruit, and the careless man covered his folly by cursing the nursery-man for selling him poor trees. In a year or two the careful man had two bushels to the other’s one from each tree. Not to be outdone, the latter determined to have as many apples as the former, and set out another hundred trees. By and by, when they bore, the other orchard had so improved that it produced twice as many yet; another hundred trees were therefore planted. In process of time the first orchard of one hundred trees still sent more fruit to market than the three hundred trees of the careless man, who now gave up and declared that he never did have luck, and it was of no use to try _on his soil_ to raise good fruit.

1. When a man is too shiftless to take good care of two horses, he buys two more, and gets from the four what he might get from two.

2. A farmer who picks up a cow simply because it is not an ox, and _is_, nominally, lactiferous, and then lets the creature work for a living, very soon buys a second, and a third, and a fourth, and gets from them all, what he should have had from one good one.

3. A farmer had one hundred acres. Instead of getting seventy-five bushels of corn to the acre, he gets forty and makes it up by cultivating twice as many acres; instead of thirty bushes of wheat he gets twelve, and puts in acres enough to make up; instead of making one hundred acres do the work of three hundred, he buys more land, and allows three hundred to do only the work of one hundred.

4. A young woman, with a little pains, can have three times as many clothes as she needs, and then not look so well as a humble neighbor who has not half her wardrobe; wherefore, we close with some proverbs made for the occasion:

Active little is better than lazy much.

Carefulness is richer than abundance.

Large farming is not always good farming, and small farming is often the largest.

SELECT LIST OF APPLES.

It is impossible to frame a list of apples which will suit every cultivator. Men’s taste in fruits is widely different. The delicacy and mildness of flavor which some admire, is to others mere insipidity. The sharp acid, and coarse grain and strong flavor which disgust many palates, are with others the very marks of a first-rate apple. The object of the cultivator in planting an orchard, whether for his own use, for a home market, for exportation, for cider-making, or for stock-feeding, will very materially vary his selection.

The soil on which an orchard is to be planted should also determine the use of many varieties, which are admirable only when well suited in their locality.

Regard is to be had to climate, since some of the finest fruits in one latitude entirely betray our expectations in another. The hardiness and health of different varieties ought to be more an object of attention than hitherto. As in building, so in planting an orchard, a mistake lasts for a century, and a bad tree in a good orchard is like bad timber in good mansion.

However select, then, a list may be, every cultivator must exercise his own judgment in adapting it to his own circumstances.

SUMMER APPLES.

1. CAROLINA JUNE.—This is identical with the Red June of the principal nurseries; but many inferior varieties scattered through the country, called Red June, are to be discriminated from it.

The tree is upright with slender wood, which, when loaded with fruit, droops like a willow. It is a healthy tree, ripens its wood early in the fall, and is not subject to frost-blight. It comes early into bearing, is productive and bears every year. The fruit is of medium size though specimens grow large; the flavor is sprightly, subacid, the flesh tender. It has flourished well on sand-loams, common clays, and on strong limestone clay. Ripens from the first to the twentieth of July. A valuable market fruit. Four trees, in one county, sent _eighty dollars_’ worth to market in one season. Not mentioned by eastern writers, nor found in eastern catalogues, but described at the West by Hampton and Plummer, and found in Ohio and Indiana nurseries.

2. SWEET JUNE.—Tree upright, wood moderately strong; ripens its wood early in fall; not subject to frost-blight; flourishes on all soils, even if quite wet; bears very young, often while in nursery rows; bears every year and abundantly. The fruit is of medium size; color a pale yellow; form globular; flavor sweet and pleasant. Ripens at same time as the Carolina June.

3. KIRKBRIDGE WHITE.—Not found in any catalogues but those of Western nurseries. Tree upright, wood strong and stubbed; grows slow while young, but vigorously when fully established; ripens its wood early in autumn; not subject to frost-blight; bears moderately young, and is very productive. _Its fruit ripens in succession for six weeks from first of July to middle of August_, and is peculiarly valuable on that account; color nearly white; it is largest at base and tapers regularly to the eye, and is ribbed; flavor, mild, pleasant acid; flesh melting, and, if fully ripe breaks to pieces in falling to the ground.

4. PRINCE’S HARVEST.—Manning pronounces this “the earliest apple worthy of cultivation.” It may be in Massachusetts, but it is preceded by many at the West. Manning’s description is good.

“The form is flat, of medium size; the skin, when perfectly ripe, is of a beautifully bright straw color; the flesh tender and sprightly; if gathered before they are fully ripe, it has too much acidity. The finest fruits are those which drop ripe from the tree; the branches make very acute angles, by which it is readily distinguished from most other trees in the orchard; it bears young. Ripe early in July.”

Our nurserymen regard it as a shy bearer.

5. SUMMER QUEEN.—Extensively cultivated in the West under the name of _Orange Apple_. The tree is spreading; a rapid grower; not subject to frost-blight; wood moderately strong; comes late into bearing; productive when the tree is fully grown, according to the books, but in this region with some exceptions has proved to be a poor bearer. Fruit large, yellow, striped with red; flesh, breaking; flavor strong, and not delicate.

6. SWEET BOUGH.—Two varieties of this name are cultivated in the West—Coxe’s and Mount’s. Coxe’s sweet bough, is that of the books and catalogues. Ripens at the same time; not quite so high in flavor. Coxe’s trees are large limbed and spreading; bearing on the point of the limbs, and are shy bearers; Mount’s variety is of upright growth; bears on spurs along the branches; is a good bearer and ripens from middle of July to August.

“A variety under the name of Philadelphia Jennetting is known in Trumbull County, Ohio. It ripens two weeks later than the common kind, otherwise it is not essentially different.”—_Dr. J. P. Kirtland._

7. SUMMER PEARMAIN.—There seem to be two varieties of this name cultivated in Ohio and Indiana.

(1.) That of Coxe, which is the one generally cultivated, and deservedly popular.

“The fruit-buds seem to be unusually hardy, and often resist the impression of late spring frosts, while others are killed. In 1834, when our fruits were universally cut off by that destructive agent, a tree of the summer pearmain and another of the Vandeveer, matured a dozen or two apples, while not another tree in an orchard containing over five hundred, bore a solitary fruit. It is worthy of more extensive cultivation.”—_Dr. Kirtland._

(2.) A variety evidently allied to Coxe’s, but all things considered a more desirable variety. The fruit resembles Coxe’s, but is larger; the flavor is the same, but not quite as high; Coxe’s is oblong; this variety is Vandeveer pippin shape; color the same, and the period of ripening, viz., July and August. The trees are very distinct; Coxe’s is upright, this is spreading; Coxe’s of a slender growth, and stinted habit, and is hard to bring forward in the nursery; this has a vigorous growth, and strong wood, and strikingly resembles the Vandeveer pippin-tree. It bears early and abundantly in all soils.

This second variety was brought, by a man named Harlan, Fayette County, Indiana, from South Carolina, where it is extensively cultivated.

8. DANIEL.—The tree is upright, nearly pear-tree shape; wood strong and healthy; leaves, above all varieties, dark green and glossy; bears young and abundantly. Fruit medium size; it has a yellow ground covered with blotches of dull red; flavor rich, sweetish, and high. Ripens in succession from first to middle of August. A desirable variety.

9. HOSS, improperly pronounced _Horse_, and so written in Prince’s catalogue. Originated in North Carolina; largely cultivated in both Carolinas and southern Virginia; named from the originator. It has been propagated by suckers, grafts, and _even by seeds_; in this latter case, the product very nearly resembles the parent. Three varieties, however, may be discriminated. Tree upright, wood strong and healthy; bears yearly and abundantly; flesh melting: flavor rather too acid until thoroughly ripe, and then fine. Ripens in August and September. Desirable in the most select orchards.

The _time of ripening_ I have set down for the latitude of Indianapolis. Upon the Ohio River, near Cincinnati, it will be ten days earlier.

AUTUMN APPLES.

10. MAIDEN’S BLUSH.—Tree moderately spreading, open top, limbs slender; grows late in fall, and somewhat liable to winter-killing; grows well on all good soils; bears young and very abundantly every year. The fruit large when the tree is not allowed to ripen too large a crop; white, and blush toward the sun; tender, melting, very juicy, decidedly acid. The fruit is, even in unfavorable seasons, very free from cracks, knots, and is always fair; one of the best for drying and excellent for marketing; should be plucked before it is dead ripe; ripens from August to October. It is the same as the English Horthornden. It does not do well grafted on the root; being apt to burst the first or second winter; buds well, and should be thus propagated in the nursery. It is a native of New Jersey.

11. WINE APPLE.—Tree spreading but not sprawling; medium grower, healthy; limbs rather slender; does well on all soils; bears very young, largely, and every year. Fruit large on young, and medium-sized on old trees; deep yellow ground covered with red, and russet about the stem; tender, melting, very juicy, high-flavored, sweet, with a spicy dash of subacid. One of the richest cooking apples; one of the most desirable for drying, resembling dried pears. Where known, it is worth, dried, a dollar and a half a bushel, when other apples command but seventy-five cents. Ripens first of September and has passed its prime by November. Eastern writers call it a winter apple, and Kenrick gives October to March as its season; but, in the West, it seldom sees the first winter month. Takes by graft and bud pretty well; does well grafted upon the root; favorable for nursery purposes.

12. HOLLAND PIPPIN.—Tree large and spreading; strong growth; wood short and stubbed, healthy; bears moderately young; they are averse to heavy clay and wet soils; on light, dry, rich, sandy soils bears largely, and of high color and flavor; bears every other year. Fruit large, very bright yellow, tender, juicy, subacid. The pulp in the mouth becomes rather viscid, as if the fruit were mucilaginous, which is agreeable or otherwise according to the taste of the eater. It is sometimes, but rarely, water-cored. Ripens in October and November; will keep later, but apt to lose in flavor. Good for drying, but usually sold green, being a very marketable fruit. Not a good tree for nurserymen; not willing to come if grafted on the root; does well by crown-grafting; moderately well by budding, the eye being apt to put out simply a spur, which can seldom be forced into a branch if permitted to harden.

13. RAMBO.—This apple is known in New Jersey by the names of Romanite, Seek-no-further, and Bread and Cheese. The first two names belong to entirely different apples. The rambo is not to be confounded with the _Rambours_, of which there are several varieties. Tree upright, and the most vigorous growth of all trees cultivated in the West; the easiest of all to bud with, a bud seldom misses, and makes extraordinary growth the first season; it may well be called the nurseryman’s favorite; bears very young, abundantly every year, good on all soils. Fruit medium size, yellow ground with red stripes and the whole overlaid with a bloom, like a plum; tender, juicy, melting, subacid, rich; it has a peculiarity of ripening; it begins at the skin and ripens toward the core; often soft and seemingly ripe on the outside while the inside is yet hard. Ripens from October to December. One of the best of all fruits.

14. GOLDEN RUSSET.—This admirable apple is put in the list of fall fruits, because, though it will keep through the winter, it ripens in November, and sometimes even in October. Tree, strong grower, upright, compact top-healthy, grows late in fall and therefore subject to winter-killing; will grow on all soils, but delights in rich sandy loams, on which it bears larger and finer fruit. Fruit small, rather oblong; color yellow, slight red next to the sun; although called _russet_, there is but a _trace_ of it on the fruit of healthy trees; tender, melting, spicy, very juicy; in flavor it resembles the St. Michael’s _pear_ (Doyenné) more nearly than any other apple.

This fruit is the most popular of all late, fall, or early winter apples, and deservedly, and should be put at the head of the list. A gentleman near Belfre, Ohio, being applied to for a list of apples to furnish an orchard of a thousand trees for marketing purposes, replied, “Take nine hundred and ninety-nine golden russets, and the _rest_ you can choose to suit yourself.” For nursery purposes it is rather a backward apple; the buds apt to fail, which occasions much resetting. It will not do well grafted on the root, being tender and always largely winter-killed when so wrought. They graft kindly on well established stocks.

If a larger list of fall apples is desired, we recommend the Fall Harvey, Gravenstein, Lyscom, Porter, Red Ingestrie, Yellow do. The Ashmore is a desirable fruit—difficult to raise in the nursery, and therefore avoided, but the fruit is fine. The Ross Nonpareil is a very admirable fall fruit of Irish origin.

The list of autumn apples is very large and continually augmenting. But fall apples are, ordinarily, less desirable than any others; not from inferior quality, but because they ripen at the season of the year when peaches and pears are in their glory.

WINTER APPLES.

15. GLORIA MUNDI or _Monstrous Pippin_. Tree, one of the most upright, top close, and resembling the pear. Wood medium sized, healthy, vigorous growth, wood ripens early, not subject to frost-blight; bears on moderately young trees. It works well from the bud, and also extremely well grafted on roots, and grows straight and finely for nursery purposes. Fruit very large, green, changes when dead-ripe to a yellowish white. Flavor mild, subacid; flesh melting and spicy. Ripens in November, at the same time with the Golden Russet, but will not keep as long. A native.

16. BLACK APPLE.—Tree low, spreading, and round topped; wood of medium vigor, healthy, ripens early, and not subject to frost-blight. Grafts on the root kindly; not so favorable for budding as the No. 15; bears remarkably young, and abundantly to a fault. Fruit medium sized; color very dark red, almost black, with grey rusty spots about the stem; flesh tender, breaking; moderately juicy, flavor rather sweet, though not a real sweet apple. No apple would stand fairer as an early winter fruit, were it not for a peculiar, dry, raw taste, somewhat resembling the taste of uncooked corn meal. Ripens from November to January. It is a native.

17. NEWTON SPITZENBURG.—Tree, not large, upright but not compact, top open; wood of medium size and vigor of growth; healthy, ripens early, and yet, now and then, it takes the frost-blight; bears moderately young, every other year, very abundantly; grafts well on the root, buds only moderately well, good for nursery handling. Fruit, varying much in size, but often large, flesh melting, juicy; flavor rich, spicy, subacid; ripens from November to January.

18. RHODE ISLAND GREENING.—Tree large, very spreading and drooping, grows vigorously, healthy, ripens early, not subject to frost-blight; bud takes well; but, whether grafted on the root, or budded, it will plague the nurseryman by its disposition to spread and twist about like a quince bush. It should be budded on strong stocks at the height at which the top is to be formed; but it always overgrows the stock. Fruit very large, color green, with cloudy spots dotted with pin-point black specks; flesh breaking, tender and juicy: flavor mild, rich, subacid; a very popular fruit. Ripens from November to January.

19. HUBBARDSTON NONESUCH.—Admirable in nursery; works well on root or by bud. We give Downing’s description, as it has not fruited in this region.

“A fine, large, early winter fruit, which originated in the town of Hubbardston, Mass., and is of first rate quality. The tree is a vigorous grower, forming a handsome branching head, and bears very large crops. It is worthy of extensive orchard culture.

“Fruit large, roundish-oblong, much narrower near the eye. Skin smooth, striped with splashes, and irregular broken stripes of pale and bright red, which nearly cover a yellowish ground. The calyx open, and the stalk short, in a russeted hollow. Flesh yellow, juicy, and tender, with an agreeable mingling of sweetness and acidity in its flavor. October to January.”

20. MINISTER.—We give Manning’s description:

“This fine apple originated in Rowley, Mass. The size is large, the form oblong like the Bellflower, tapering to the eye, with broad ridges the whole length of the fruit; the skin a light greenish yellow, striped with bright red, but the red seldom extends to the eye; flesh yellow, light, high flavored and excellent. This is one of the very finest apples which New England has produced. It ripens from November to February, and deserves a place in every collection of fruits, however small. This apple received its present name from the circumstance of the late Rev. Dr. Spring, of Newburyport, having purchased the first fruit brought to market.”