"June-drop," when the extent of the crop is evident. The fruits are
pulled off by hand or cut with thinning-shears, the latter practice
being the better since it is not so likely to break the fruit-spurs.
The least promising fruits are taken away and the remaining apples are
left at least five or six inches apart in most varieties. The extent
of thinning must be governed by the variety, thrift of the tree,
result desired, and other conditions. To secure the best results, the
apples should be thinned when still small.
Thinning by early-spring removal of fruit-spurs is a very special
practice. It is employed on dwarf trees and on those specially
trained. It should be undertaken only by a careful and experienced
man. It is not to be inferred that the fruit of the apple is all borne
on spurs, for some of it may be derived from terminal buds on the new
axial growths or even from lateral buds; but the spurs are conspicuous
and readily recognized. Of course the ordinary pruning of the tree
removes fruit-bearing wood and is therefore a thinning process.
Within sensible limits, therefore, pruning is an invigorating process
in the sense that it deflects the energy to remaining parts of the
tree. What is called too heavy pruning, whereby the tree throws out
abundance of water-sprouts, is illustration of this fact: the tree is
thrown into heavy growth of adventitious shoots. The tree may not
produce more pounds of substance, or even more total feet in length,
but new energy is developed in certain parts.
In the restoration, or so-called renovation, of old neglected trees,
the two primary considerations are to prune vigorously and to till and
fertilize the land. Sometimes old trees must be mended as explained in
Chapter XIII. Of course they must be sprayed for what ails them. If
the variety is poor, the tree may be top-grafted (Chapter XII). In
some cases, it is hardly possible to make neglected trees bear
satisfactorily, for they were never of value: there is nothing to
restore. It may be a question of soil and location, of lack of
pollination, of trees so weak or so misshapen that effort on them is
wasted. But tillage, pruning, spraying, should produce worth-while
results in most cases.
In the care of the fruit-tree there is no practice which brings the
grower into such intimate knowledge of the plant as that of pruning
and thinning. The operator sees the tree as a whole, taking it all in;
then he sees it in small detail in all its parts, even to the spurs
and buds. With simple good tools, sharp and keen, and with a practiced
eye, he applies a deft and swift handicraft, cutting true, making a
fair clean wound, leaving the tree comely and ready for its highest
effort. The pride of good workmanship may find expression. The
operator feels also the sense of mastery that is in him, whereby he
corrects the tree, removes the wayward parts, keeps and encourages all
that is best. To engage in this kind of education requires that one
approaches the work with due preparation of mind and I think also with
consecration of heart.
VII
MAINTAINING THE HEALTH AND ENERGY OF THE APPLE-TREE
The apple-tree starts life fresh and vigorous. It grows rapidly. The
shoots are long and straight. The wood is smooth and fair and supple.
The leaves are usually large. It is good to see the young trees
acquire size and take shape.
Room in the ground and in the air is ample with the young apple-tree.
It is free to grow. Probably the ground was newly prepared and tilled
when the tree was planted; at least, a hole was dug and fine good
earth was placed about the roots. Probably insects had not found
permanent encampment on the tree. It had been well pruned, so that it
carried the minimum of superfluous and competing parts.
But in time the difficulties come. The tree probably slows down. It
becomes too thick of branches. The land is not tilled. It is not
manured. Insects and fungi make headway. The tree overbears. As the
years go on, the tree is thrown into alternate bearing, one year a
crop too heavy, one year a crop too light. The tree becomes broken,
diseased, gnarly, unshapely.
We have seen that the fruit-spur in bearing is likely to make a
leaf-bud for the next year's activities rather than a flower-bud. It
is assumed that the making of a flower-bud requires more energy than
the making of a plain leaf-bud; if this is true, there may not be
energy enough to carry a flower-cluster and to make a new flower-bud
at the same time. But if the tree is in proper vigor, is well fed,
protected from noxious organisms, not allowed to overbear, it should
have sufficient energy to make a crop every year, frosts and accidents
excepted. It is assumed, of course, that self-sterile varieties have
good pollinizing varieties near them; it is always well to plant two
or more kinds near together. Whether the continuity of bearing is
exhibited on the same fruit-spurs or whether there may be an
alternation in the spurs on the same tree, is of no moment in this
discussion. It is enough to say that there is no reason in the nature
of the case why an apple-tree should bear only every other year; it is
probably a question of nutrition.
The first essential to continued health and vigor is to start with a
strong unblemished tree. It is to be planted before its vitality is
lessened by exposure and hard usage. The more direct the transfer from
nursery to orchard, the better. It is to be placed in good ground,
well drained and deeply spaded or plowed. The apple-tree thrives on
many kinds of land, but light sand, hard clay, and muck are equally to
be avoided. "Good corn land" is commonly considered to be good apple
land. Certain soils and regions are particularly adaptable to
commercial apple-growing, but the amateur may plant quite
independently of this fact. The observant man notes the many
conditions under which the apple-tree may be grown with satisfaction.
If the land is not uniformly prepared, then the hole dug for the tree
should be larger than demanded by spread of roots, and the earth
fined in the bottom of it. Trees should be planted when perfectly
dormant, preferably in spring, at least in the northern parts.
The roots should be cut back to sound unsplintered wood, and very long
roots may well be shortened. The reader is aware that roots have no
regular order or arrangement as do the buds from which branches arise.
It is not necessary to try to shape the root-system to any formal
regularity.
As a good part of the root-system is destroyed when the tree is dug,
so is the top reduced to insure something like a balance. Half or more
of the top, on a three-year-old tree, is cut away, the long growths
being shortened to perhaps three or four good buds. If limbs are left
to form the framework of the future top, they should be alternate with
each other at some distance apart so that weak crotches do not form.
The tree is planted snugly, the earth being filled among the roots so
that no air-holes remain. The tree is shaken up and down to settle the
earth densely. Once or twice in filling, the earth is packed with the
feet. The purpose is to keep the tree firm and stiff against winds,
and to give all its roots close contact with the earth. Properly
planted, so that it will not whip or dry out, the tree gets a hold
quickly and begins to grow strongly. The first start-off of the tree
is important.
Apple-trees are held in vigor by plenty of room. For the standard
varieties in regular orchards, the recommended distance either way is
40 feet, or 35 x 40 feet. Some varieties may go as close as 30 feet;
and in regions (as parts of central and western North America) in
which the trees are not expected to attain such great size as in the
eastern country, the planting may be even less than this of the
upright-growing kinds. The spaces between the trees may be utilized
for a few years with other crops, even with other fruits, as peaches
or berries. Orchardists sometimes plant smaller-growing and
early-bearing varieties of apples between the regular trees as
"fillers," taking them out as the room is needed. Of course all kinds
of double cropping require that extra attention be given to the
tilling and fertilizing of the plantation.
The general advice for the growing of strong apple-trees is to give
the land good tillage from the first and to withhold other cropping
after the trees come into profitable bearing. Clean tillage for the
first part of the season and the raising of a cover-crop in the latter
part, to be plowed under, is a standard and dependable procedure.
Trees live long in continuous sod and they may thrive, but they may be
expected to show gains under tillage. Vast areas of apple plantings
are in sod, but this of itself does not demonstrate the desirability
of the sod practice. Allowing trees to remain in sod usually leads to
neglect.
There is a modification of sod-practice in some parts of the country
that gives excellent results, under certain conditions. The grass is
cut and allowed to lie, not being removed for hay. Manure and
fertilizer are added as top-dressing, as needed. This method is known
as the "sod mulch system." It is not a practice of partial neglect,
like the prevailing sod orchards, but a regular designed method of
producing results. Its application can hardly be as widespread as
clean tillage, on level lands.
It is a common opinion that hillsides and more or less inaccessible
slopes should be planted to apples. This may be true in the sense
that apples will grow on such areas and that such plantations are
better than fallow land. In fact, many such lands are profitable in
orchards. When they do not allow of tillage, easy spraying, and
economy in harvesting, however, they cannot compete with level
orchards.
To maintain the health and energy of the apple-tree, the land should
be enriched. This may be accomplished by the application of animal
manures, chemical fertilizers, or cover-crops, or preferably by a
combination of these means. Not many persons possess sufficient farm
manures to supply the general crops and the apple-orchard; but every
application the orchard receives is all to the good. Five to ten tons
of good stable manure to the acre annually is a good addition for an
orchard in bearing. This may be supplemented by cover-crops and bag
fertilizers in years in which the manure is not available. Experiments
are yet inconclusive on the fertilizing of apple-trees, but it is fair
to assume that on most lands, particularly on old lands, the addition
of chemical fertilizer is advantageous. A bearing apple-tree may
receive two to eight pounds of nitrate of soda (depending on its size
and on soil) applied to the full feeding area of the roots, five to
nine pounds of acid phosphate, two or three pounds of muriate of
potash; always ask advice.
The pasturing of orchards is often defensible and sometimes even
desirable. If the trees are growing too rapidly, they may be "slowed
down" by seeding to grass for a time; and pasturing with hogs, and
possibly with sheep, may afford a way of keeping the area in condition
and of adding fertilizer. Sheep that do not have access to
drinking-water and salt gnaw the trees. Hogs root up the ground and
thereby provide a rude kind of tillage. If animals are fed other food
in the orchard, the fertilizer increment will be considerable.
In house-lot conditions, the apple-tree usually receives sufficient
food if the land is well enriched for garden purposes; but trees in
sod should have liberal top-dressings of fertilizer every year and of
stable manure every other year.
The apple-tree should have a good supply of moisture. Planted on banks
and in hard places about buildings, it may suffer in this respect. The
land should be so graded that the rainfall will not run off. In
orchard conditions, the moisture is conserved by the addition of humus
to the land, and by thorough judicious tillage; and in dry regions it
is supplied by irrigation.
The energy of the apple-tree, and its ability to produce, is conserved
by holding all diseases and noxious insects in check. The means at the
command of the apple-grower are now many. No longer is the man
helpless, nor does he need to appeal to the moon or to "atmospheric
influences" for reasons. The natural histories of fungi and insects,
that do so much damage, are now a part of common understandable
knowledge. To acquire at least a working understanding of the
commonest of these subjects is in itself a great satisfaction and
gives one a sense of dominion. The good books and bulletins are
sufficient to keep one well informed. All these organisms are tenants
of the apple-tree, and from the naturist's point of view alone they
are not to be overlooked.
It is not to be inferred that all apple-trees will yield equally well
with equally good treatment. There is difference in trees as there is
in cows. We may not know why. But even so, it is our part to do the
best we can: this is our privilege.
The tillage and care of plants lessen the struggle for existence. So
is the apple-tree protected from the crowds, from contest for moisture
and food, from insects, and from the competition within itself.
Thereby is it able to express all its possibilities. Even the dormant
potentialities may be wakened, and the plant makes a wide departure
from its native state. This is not an original state of sin, but a
state of repression in which it is held in a world that is full of so
many things beside apple-trees. I may till my orchard ever so well,
manipulate the trees ever so promptly, yet if the plantation then is
allowed to run to neglect the processes of depreciation gain the
mastery; the struggle for existence is restored.
To keep one's apple-tree in the pink of perfection is as joyful an
enterprise as to do anything else well. It is only the well-conditioned
tree that yields its glorious harvest year by year.
VIII
HOW AN APPLE-TREE IS MADE
If the seeds of a Baldwin or Winesap apple are planted, we do not
expect to get a Baldwin or Winesap; we shall probably raise a very
inferior fruit. The apple has not been bred "true to seed" as has the
cabbage and sweet pea. To get the tree "true to name," of the desired
variety and with no chance of failure (barring accident), is one of
the niceties of horticulture. This is accomplished with great
precision and despatch.
The apple-tree is started from the seed. It cannot be grown freely by
means of cuttings, as can the grape and currant. In commercial
practice the seeds are collected mostly from cider mills or from
pomace. The seeds may be washed from the pomace, allowed to dry, and
then mixed in sand, charcoal, sawdust or other material to prevent
dessication and kept until spring, when they are sown. Or, if the land
is not so wet in winter that the seed will drown or be washed out, the
seed in the pomace (not separated) may be sown in autumn. The seeds
are sown in drills, after the manner of onions or turnips, one to two
or even three inches deep. They germinate readily in the cool of
spring, and the plants should reach a height of twelve inches and more
the first year.
If these plants were grown directly into bearing trees, it is
probable that no two trees would produce the same kind of fruit. Some
of the fruit might be summer apples, some of it winter apples, some
red, yellow or striped, some of it flat, oblong or spherical, most of
it sour but perhaps some of it sweet. Probably every kind would be
inferior to the parent stock or to standard varieties, although there
is a fair chance that a superior kind might originate from a field of
such plants.
Therefore, it is not the variety (that is, the top) that is wanted in
the raising of these numerous plants, but merely the roots, on which
desired varieties may be grown by the clever art of graftage. Yet not
even all the roots may be wanted, for the growing plants may differ or
vary in their stature and vigor as well as in their fruit. The
discriminating grower, therefore, discards the weak and puny treelings
at the digging time; or if the weak plants seem still to have promise,
they may be allowed to grow another year before they are dug for the
grafting.
This digging time is the autumn of the first year, when the plants
have grown one season. They are then to be used as "stocks" on which
to graft Baldwin, Winesap or other varieties. The growing of these
apple stocks is a business by itself. Formerly, most of the stocks
used in North America were imported from France, where special skill
has been developed in the growing of them and where the requisite
labor is available. But now the stocks are grown also in deep rich
bottom lands of the Middle West, as in Kansas, where, in the long
seasons, a large growth may be attained.
The methods of graftage of the commercial apple-tree are two--by
cion-grafting whereby a bit of wood with two or three buds is inserted
on the stock, by bud-grafting (budding) whereby a single bud with a
bit of bark attached is inserted under the bark of the stock.
Cion-grafting is practiced in winter under cover. The stock is cut off
at the crown and the cion spliced on it, or the root may be cut in two
or more pieces and each piece receive a cion. The union is made by the
whip-graft method (Fig. 16). The cion is tied securely, to keep it in
place. The piece-root method is allowable only when the root is long
and strong, so that a well-rooted plant results the first year. The
cion is a cutting of the last year's growth (as of No. 1, in Fig. 14).
However accomplished, the process is to supply the cion with roots; it
is planted in another plant instead of in the ground.
[Illustration: 16. The whip-graft before tying.]
The cion-grafts are now planted in the nursery row in spring. The cion
starts growth rapidly, only one shoot being allowed to remain; this
shoot forms the trunk or bole of the future tree. At the end of the
first season, the little tree is said to be one year old, although the
root is at least two years old; at the end of the second year it is
two years old; the tree is sometimes sold as a two-year-old, but
usually a year later as a three-year-old having a four-year-old root.
In fact, however, the root and top may be considered, in a way, to be
of the same age, particularly if only a piece of the root is employed,
for the cion grew on its parent tree the same year the root was
growing in the nursery.
The tree grew from the seed but it is no longer a "seedling" or a
"natural;" it is now a grafted tree, destined to produce a named
recognized variety of apple, maybe York Imperial, maybe Jonathan. We
find seedling trees in old fields, in fence-rows, and in woods. These
have grown from scattered seeds and have come to fruit without the
arts of the propagator. They bear their own tops or heads, rather than
the heads that a thrifty horticulturist would have put on them. Now
and then such a tree produces superior fruit; then a discriminating
pomologist discovers it, names it a new variety, and propagates it as
other varieties are propagated. Thus have most of the prized varieties
originated, without knowledge on the part of man of the ultimate
processes. But now with the accumulating knowledge of the
plant-breeder we hope to be able to foresee and probably to produce
varieties of given qualities.
[Illustration: 17. A "bud" before tying.]
Bud-grafting is practiced in summer. The young trees, obtained from
the grower of apple stocks, are planted regularly in nursery rows in
spring, the top having been cut back to the crown so that a strong
vigorous shoot will arise. In July and August or September, when this
shoot is the size of a lead pencil and larger and the bark will peel
(or separate from the wood), a single bud is inserted near the ground
(Fig. 17). This bud is deftly cut from the current year's growth of
the desired variety; it grows in the axil of a leaf (Fig. 15). The
leaf is removed but a small part of the stalk or petiole is retained
with the bud to serve as a handle. A boat-shaped or shield-shaped
piece of bark is removed with the bud. This piece, known technically
as a "bud," is inserted in an incision on the stock, so that it slips
underneath the bark and next the wood, with only the bud itself
showing in the slit; it is then tied in place.
The stock on which the bud is inserted has a two-year root, and the
root is entire. For this reason, budded trees are usually very large
and strong for their age when compared with piece-root trees grown
under similar conditions of climate, tillage and soil.
The bud does not grow the year it is inserted in the stock; it is
dormant until the following spring, as it would have been had it
remained on its parent branch; but soon after it is inserted it
attaches itself fast to the stock: it is a bud implanted from one twig
to another. The following spring, if the operation is successful, the
bud "grows," sending up a strong shoot that makes the trunk of the
future tree. The top of the stock is cut away; in the merchantable
tree, the bend or place may be seen where the stock and cion meet.
As in the case of cion-grafting, we now have a top of a known variety
growing on the root of an unknown kind. The tree is sold at two or
three years, counting the age of the top; and of course the tree is no
longer called a seedling, and it produces its implanted variety as
accurately as does the cion-grafted tree. Equally good trees are
produced by both cion-grafting and bud-grafting.
The apple-tree is now "propagated," and is ready for the planting.
Great hopes will be built on it, and the tree will probably do its
part to justify them. Nobody knows how a bud from a Baldwin tree holds
the memory of a Baldwin or from a Winesap tree the memory of a
Winesap. Neither does anyone know why of two seeds that look alike one
will unerringly produce a cabbage and the other a cauliflower. So
accustomed are we to these results that we never challenge a twig of
apple or a seed of cabbage: we assume that the twig or the seed
"knows." Nor have we yet approached this question in our elaborate
studies of plant-breeding. Here is one of the mysteries that baffles
the skill of the physiologist and chemist, yet it is a mystery so very
common that we know it not, albeit the life on the planet would
otherwise be utter confusion.
IX
THE DWARF APPLE-TREE
We have learned that many kinds of apples and apple-trees may come
from a batch of seeds. Differences are expressed in the tree as well
as in the fruit. In fact, stature is usually one of the
characteristics of the variety. Here I open Downing's great book, "The
Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America," and find the description of a
certain variety beginning: "Tree while young very slow in its growth,
but makes a compact well-formed head in the orchard," and another:
"Tree vigorous, upright spreading, and productive." We know the small
stature and early bearing of the Wagener (wherefore it is often
planted in the orchard as a filler), and the great wide-spreading head
of the Tompkins King with the apples scattered through the tree.
Now it so happens that in the course of time certain great races of
the apple-tree have arisen, we do not know just why or how. There is
the race or family of the russets and of the Fameuse. So are there
several races very small in stature, remaining perhaps no larger than
bushes. If we were to propagate any of the ordinary apples on such
diminutive stocks, we should have a "dwarf apple-tree."
The dwarf apple, then, is not a question of variety but of stock. Any
variety may be grown as a dwarf by grafting it on a plant that
naturally remains small, although some varieties are more adaptable
than others to the purpose.
If seeds of the natural diminutive apple-tree are sown, a variety of
trees and apples may be expected. The fruits would probably be
inferior. Probably the stature would vary between different seedlings.
If we are to get the effect of dwarfness, we must be sure that the
stock is itself really dwarf. Therefore, to eliminate variation and
also because seeds of natural dwarf apples may not be had in
sufficient quantity, the stocks are propagated by layers rather than
by seeds.