After considerable experience in grafting old orchards on different
farms, I have come to the decided conviction that it is better to plant
out young, grafted trees of the sorts desired, than to graft over an
orchard of old trees. I wished to change an orchard of Northern Spy,
which had just begun to bear, into Baldwins; and thinking that the
grafting of these thrifty young trees could be done to as good advantage
as it ever could in any case, I put in from four to six grafts into each
tree, which cost me about the same as new trees. Now I am not at all
pleased with my work. The symmetry and beauty of the tree-top is
destroyed, and after the best has been done that can be done to develop
well-balanced tops from these grafts, they will have the appearance of
having been bungled. In the case of old trees it is worse yet; it is
more expensive, because more grafts must be set, more trimming done, and
the work performed at great disadvantage. It is not, in my opinion,
profitable to make such an orchard as satisfactory in appearance or as
profitable in the end, as an orchard newly planted with young trees. The
old trees will pay for the new trees if dug up by the roots in early
Spring and cut up into stove-wood. I had a large orchard of old apple
trees which I had dug up for twelve and a half cents each, and produced
nearly an average of a cord of wood to a tree. The wood was worth
enough, and more than enough, to pay for my new orchard of young trees,
and when grown they will be far better than I could possibly have made
the old trees by grafting them over.
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