Saturday, October 30, 2010

Lungwort:define Lungwort Pulmonaria species, growing in shade gardens and uses

Lungwort:define

Lungwort Pulmonaria
(Pulmonaria species)
These clump-forming perennials can be grown as case plants or as a groundcover in partial to abounding shade. The foliage of best breed and varieties is blooming with white or argent spots. However, some of the newer varieties accept essentially silver leaves with blooming margins.
In accession to the adorable foliage, lungworts additionally aftermath white, pink, or dejected fl owers in spring. The accepted name refers to the declared value

Growing, Know How

For those beginner gardeners. - Grow this bulb in adumbration or allotment adumbration conditions. In abounding sun, you ability acquisition Lungworth a little billowing although it will survive.
Give Lungwort a appropriate adobe with able summertime moisture. This is not a bulb for the dry adumbration or it will artlessly atrophy away. Do not accord it adobe clay as it will rot over the winter. Abound it in a acceptable "forest-soil" one that has a aerial absorption of amoebic amount (dig in admixture and/or peat moss) and approved waterings.
What you may acquisition with Lungwort is that if you corruption it in any way, it will artlessly achromatize away. It will appear aback the afterward spring! (so don't accord up hope) It responds to corruption (too hot, too abundant sun etc) by disappearing.
Propagation and Hardiness
The easiest for the home garden is to bisect Lungwort in aboriginal bounce or in fall.
Lungwort is able appropriate bottomward to USDA area 2/3 (2 if adequate in the winter)

Varieties
There are some actual absorbing Lungwort varieties in garden centers now and the leaves appear in a advanced array of shapes, shades of blooming as able-bodied as variegations.
This is a acceptable aggregate bulb with hosta because of the choices in blade variations.

**Pulmonaria 'Baby Blue' This is the tightest, best compact, mounded anatomy to date and it won't abound to breach in the center. Flowers age to a admirable babyish blue.

**Pulmonaria 'Majeste' Solid silvery-gray leaves with a actual attenuated blooming margin. In backward spring, ablaze blush buds pop accessible to acknowledge darker bluish-pink annual bells.

**Pulmonaria 'Raspberry Ice' Long, arctic blooming leaves belted in fair with raspberry blush annual clusters accommodate a abrupt contrast, and absolutely assume to ablaze this bulb up.

**Pulmonaria 'Raspberry Splash' raspberry-pink annual clusters ball amid the aphotic green, silver-spotted leaves in backward spring. One of the added cocked growing addiction and abounding bloomers.

**Pulmonaria 'Samourai' Dejected flowers are produced in backward spring. The continued leaves are authentic silver.

**Pulmonaria 'Silver Shimmers' Clusters of almost large, steel-blue flowers are abeyant aloft the long, bouncing foliage which charcoal low. The leaves are heavily saturated with silver.

**Pulmonaria longifolia 'Bertram Anderson' Gentian dejected flowers arising from fuchia buds in backward spring. Like added P. longifolia, 'Bertram Anderson' has long, attenuated leaves heavily spotted with silver.

**Pulmonaria 'Diana Clare' angel blooming leaves biconcave in argent accumulate their blush all division long. Their long, acicular leaves adverse able-bodied with the violet-blue flowers

**Pulmonaria longifolia 'Roy Davidson' mounded foliage of 'Roy Davidson' is heavily spotted with argent and are continued and narrow. One of the abate varieties.

**Pulmonaria officinalis 'Sissinghurst White' White flowering, the leaves are brindled with silver.

**Pulmonaria saccharata 'Mrs. Moon' an earlier variety, it has mounded, argent spotted foliage. In backward spring, magenta-pink buds accessible to ablaze dejected bell-shaped flowers.
Lungwort is a accomplished adumbration garden bulb and I confess, one of my favorites.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Beginner Vegetable gardening - General guidance

Beginner Vegetable Gardening

It is with an activity in which there is article of abhorrence that I close
these pages--fear that abounding of those little things which become second
nature to the agriculturalist of plants and assume unimportant, but which
sometimes are aloof the things that the abecedarian wants to apperceive about,
may accept been aback larboard out. In every operation described,
however, I accept approved to acknowledgment all all-important details. I would urge
the reader, nevertheless, to abstraction as thoroughly as accessible all the
garden problems with which he will acquisition himself confronted and to this
end acclaim that he apprehend several of the abounding garden books which are
now to be had. It will be to his advantage to see alike the same
subjects presented afresh from added credibility of view. The added familiar
he can accomplish himself, both in approach and in practice, with all the
multitude of operations which avant-garde agronomical involves, the
greater the success he will attain.
Personally, the added I accept gone into the growing of things--and
that has now become my business as able-bodied as my pleasure--the more
absorbingly absorbing I acquisition it. Anniversary season, anniversary crop, offers its
own problems and a accolade for the actual band-aid of them. It is a
work which, alike to the beginner, presents the befalling of deducting
new conclusions, aggravating fresh experiments, authoritative fresh discoveries. It is
a assignment which offers affable and advantageous amusement to the abounding whose
days charge be, for the best part, spent in appointment or shop; and it gives
very abundant advice in the world-old botheration of authoritative both ends
meet.
Let the garden abecedarian not be aghast if he does not succeed, for
the aboriginal division or two, or possibly three, with aggregate he plants.
There is usually a preventable acumen for the failure, and studious
observation will acknowledge it. With the avant-garde success in the application
of insecticides and fungicides, and the addendum of the convenance of
irrigation, the accountable of agronomical begins to be bargain to a
scientific and (what is added to the point) a abiding basis. We are getting
control of the ambiguous factors. All this affects first, perhaps, the
person who grows for profit, but with our present advanced apportionment of
every fresh abstraction and analysis in such matters, it charge ability anon to
every alien home garden application which is cared for by a wide-awake
gardener.
Such a person, from the actuality that he or she is account a fresh garden
book, I booty the clairvoyant to be. I achievement this volume, abridged admitting it
is, has added to your armamentarium of applied garden information; that it
will advice to abound that accepted additional brand of grass. I accept alone to
add, as I about-face afresh to the problems cat-and-mouse for me in acreage and under
glass, that I ambition you all success in your work--the authoritative of better
gardens in America.
Beginner Vegetable Gardening

Calendar of Home Vegetable Gardening for all the year, Planting plan


Planting Plan. The importance of accurately planning the work ahead was emphasized I mentioned there the check list used to make sure that everything would be carried out, or started ahead at the proper time--as with the sowing

of seeds. The following garden operations, given month by month, will serve not only as a timely reminder of things to be done, but as the basis for such a check list.

JANUARY
Probably one of the good resolutions made with the New Year was a better garden for the coming summer. The psychologists claim that the only hope for resolutions is to nail them down at the start with an action--that seems to have more effect in making an actual impression on the brain. So start the good work along by sending at once for several of the leading seed catalogs.

Planting Plan. Make out a list of what you are going to want this year, and then make your Planting Plan.
Seeds. Order your seed. Do it now while the seed store's stock is full; while he is not rushed; while there is ample time to rectify mistakes if any occur.
Manures. Altogether too few amateur gardeners realize the great importance of procuring early every pound of manures, of any kind, to be had. It often may be had cheaply at this time of year, and by composting, adding phosphate, and several turnings, if you have any place under cover where it can be collected, you can double its value before spring.
Frames. Even at this season of the year do not fail to air the frames well on warm days. Practically no water will be needed, but if the soil does dry out sufficiently to need it, apply early on a bright morning.
Onions. It will not be too early, this month, to sow onions for spring transplanting outside. Get a packet each of Prizetaker, AilsaCraig, Mammoth Silver-skin, or Gigantic Gibraltar. Lettuce. Sow lettuce for spring crop under glass or in frames.
Fruit. This is a good month to prune grapes, currants, gooseberries and peach trees, to avoid the rush that will come later.

FEBRUARY
Hotbeds. A little early for making them until after the 15th, but get all your material ready--manure, selected and stacked; lumber ready for any new ones; sash all in good repair. Starting Seeds. First part of the month, earliest planting of cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce should be made; and two to four weeks later for main early crop. At this time also, beets and earliest celery.
Tools. Overhaul them all now; order repairs. Get new catalogs and study new improvements and kinds you do not possess. Poles and brush. Whether you use the old-fashioned sort (now harder to obtain than they used to be) or make your "poles" and use wire trellis for peas, attend to it now. Fruit. Finish up last month's work, if not all done. Also examine plum and cherry trees for black-knot.

MARCH
Hotbeds. If not made last of February, should be made at once. Some of the seed sown last month will be ready for transplanting and going into the frames; also lettuce sown in January. Radish and carrot
(forcing varieties) may be sown in alternating rows. Give much more air; water on bright mornings; be careful not to have them caught by suddenly cold nights after a bright warm day.
Seed-sowing under glass. Last sowing of early cabbage and early summer cabbages (like Succession), lettuce, rhubarb (for seedling plants), cauliflower, radish, spinach, turnip, and early tomatoes; towards last of month, late tomatoes and first of peppers, and eggplant. Sweet peas often find a place in the vegetable garden; start a few early, to set out later; they will do better than if started outside. Start tomatoes for growing in frames. For early potatoes sprout in sand.

Planting, outside. If an early spring, and the ground is sufficiently dry, sow onions, lettuce, beet, radish, (sweet peas), smooth peas, early carrot, cabbage, leek, celery (main crop), and turnip. Set out new beds of asparagus, rhubarb and sea-kale (be sure to try a few plants of the latter). Manure and fork up old beds of above. Fruit. Prune now, apple, plum and pear trees.

APRIL
Now the rush is on! Plan your work, and work your plan. But do not yield to the temptation to plant more than you can look out for later on. Remember it is much easier to sow seeds than to pull out weeds.

The Frames. Air! water! and do not let the green plant-lice or the white-fly get a ghost of a chance to start. Almost every day the glass should be lifted entirely off. Care must be taken never to let the soil or flats become dried out; toward the end of the month, if it is bright and warm, begin watering towards evening instead of in early morning, as you should have been doing through the winter. If proper attention is given to ventilation and moisture, there will not be much danger from the green plant-louse (aphis) and white-fly, but at the first sign of one fight them to a finish. Use kerosene emulsion, tobacco dust, tobacco preparations, or Aphine. Seed sowing. Under glass: tomato, egg-plant and peppers. On sod: corn, cucumbers, melons, early squash, lima beans.

Planting, outside. Onions, lettuce, beet, etc., if not put in last month; also parsnip, salsify, parsley, wrinkled peas, endive. Toward the end of this month (or first part of next) second plantings of these. Set out plants of early cabbage (and the cabbage group) lettuce, onion sets, sprouted potatoes, beets, etc.
In the Garden. Cultivate between rows of sowed crops; weed out y hand just as soon as they are up enough to be seen; watch for cutworms and root-maggots.
Fruit. Thin out all old blackberry canes, dewberry and raspberry canes (if this was not done, as it should have been, directly after the fruiting season last summer). Be ready for first spraying of earlyblossoming
trees. Set out new strawberry beds, small fruits and fruit trees.

MAY
Keep ahead of the weeds. This is the month when those warm, south, driving rains often keep the ground too wet to work for days at a time, and weeds grow by leaps and bounds. Woe betide the gardener ose rows of sprouting onions, beets, carrots, etc., once become green with wild turnip and other rapid-growing intruders. Clean cultivation and slight hilling of plants set out are also essential.

The Frames. These will not need so much attention now, but care must be taken to guard tender plants, such as tomatoes, egg-plant and peppers, against sudden late frosts. The sash may be left off most of the time. Water copiously and often.

Planting, outside. First part of the month: early beans, early corn, okra and late potatoes may be put in; and first tomatoes set out --even if a few are lost--they are readily replaced. Finish setting out cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, beets, etc., from frames. Latter part of month, if warm: corn, cucumbers, some of sods from frames and early squash as traps where late crop is to be planted or set.
Fruit. Be on time with first sprayings of late-blossoming fruits--apples, etc. Rub off from grape vines the shoots that are not wanted.

JUNE
Frequent, shallow cultivation! Firm seeds in dry soil. Plant wax beans, lima beans, pole beams, melons, corn, etc., and successive crops of lettuce, radish, etc. Top-dress growing crops that need special manure (such as nitrate of soda on onions). Prune tomatoes, and cut out some foliage for extra early tomatoes. Toward end of month set celery and late cabbage. Also sow beans, beets, corn, etc., for early fall crops. Spray where
necessary. Allow asparagus to grow to tops. Fruit. Attend to spraying fruit trees and currants and
gooseberries. Make pot-layers of strawberries for July setting.

JULY
Maintain frequent, shallow cultivation. Set out late cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks and celery. Sow beans, beets, corn, etc., for late fall crops. Irrigate where needed.
Fruit. Pinch back new canes of blackberry, dewberry and raspberry. Rub off second crop of buds on grapes. Thin out if too many bunches; also on plums, peaches and other fruit too thick, or touching.
Pot-layered strawberries may be set out.


AUGUST

Keep the garden clean from late weeds--especially purslane, the hotweather weed pest, which should be always removed from the garden and disposed of or rotted down.

Sow spinach, rutabaga turnip, bush beans and peas for last fall crop. During first part of month, late celery may still be put out. Sow lettuce for early fall crop, in frames. First lot of endive should be tied up for blanching.

Fruit. Strawberries may be set, and pot-layered plants, if wanted to bear a full crop the following season, should be put in. Thin out and bag grapes.

SEPTEMBER
Frames. Set in lettuce started in August. Sow radishes and successive crop of lettuce. Cooler weather begins to tell on lateplanted crops. Give cabbage, cauliflower, etc., deeper cultivation.
"Handle" celery wanted for early use. Harvest and store onions. Get squash under cover before frost. From the 15th to 25th sow spinach, onions, borecole for wintering over. Sow down thickly to rye all plots as fast as cleared of summer crops; or plow heavy land in ridges. Attend to draining.
Fruit. Trees may be set. Procure barrels for storing fruit in winter. At harvest time it is often impossible to get them at any price.

OCTOBER
Get ready for winter. Blanch rest of endive. Bank celery, to be used before Christmas, where it is. Gather tomatoes, melons, etc., to keep as long as possible. Keep especially clean and well cultivated all crops to be wintered over. Late in the month store cabbage and cauliflower; also beets, carrots, and other root crops. Get boxes, barrels, bins, sand or sphagnum moss ready beforehand, to save time in packing.
Clean the garden; store poles, etc., worth keeping over; burn everything else that will not rot; and compost everything that will. Fruit. Harvest apples, etc. Pick winter pears just before hard frosts, and store in dry dark place.

NOVEMBER
Frames. Make deep hotbeds for winter lettuce and radishes. Construct frames for use next spring. See that vegetables in basement, bins, and sheds are safe from freezing. Trench or store celery for spring use. Take in balance of all root crops if any remain in the ground, except, of course, parsnip and salsify for spring use. Put
rough manure on asparagus and rhubarb beds. Get mulch ready for spinach, etc., to be wintered over, if they occupy exposed locations. Fruit. Obtain marsh or salt hay for mulching strawberries. Cut out old wood of cane-fruits--blackberries, etc., if not done after gathering fruit. Look over fruit trees for borers.

DECEMBER
Cover celery stored last month, if trenched out-of-doors. Use only light, loose material at first, gradually covering for winter. Put mulch on spinach, etc.
Fruit. Mulch strawberries. Prune grape-vines; make first application of winter sprays for fruit trees.

AND THEN
Set about procuring manures of all kinds from every available source. Remember that anything which will rot will add to the value of your manure pile. Muck, lime, old plastering, sods, weeds (earth and all), street, stable and yard sweepings--all these and  a good Calendar of Home Vegetable Gardening - Planting Plan will increase your garden successes of next year.

A CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS
PVAE62387MCX 


The Grape - Pruning and care

THE GRAPE

No garden is so small that there cannot be found in it room for three or four grape-vines; no fruit is more certain, and few more delicious.
If it is convenient, a situation fully exposed to the sun, and sloping slightly, will be preferable. But any good soil, provided only it is rich and thoroughly drained, will produce good results. If a few vines
are to be set against walls, or in other out-of-the-way places, prepare the ground for them by excavating a good-sized hole, putting in a foot of coal cinders or other drainage material, and refilling with good
heavy loam, enriched with old, well rotted manure and half a peck of wood ashes. For culture in the garden, such special preparation will not be necessary--although, if the soil is not in good shape, it will be advisable to slightly enrich the hills.
One or two-year roots will be the most satisfactory to buy. They may be set in either fall or spring--the latter time, for New York or north, being generally preferable. When planting, the cane should be cut back to three or four eyes, and the roots should also be shortened back-- usually about one-third. Be sure to make the hole large enough, when setting, to let the roots spread naturally, and work the soil in well around them with the fingers. Set them in firmly, by pressing down hard with the ball of the foot after firming by hand. They are set about six feet apart.

GRAPE PRUNING

As stated above, the vine is cut back, when planting, to three or four eyes. The subsequent pruning--and the reader must at once distinguish between pruning, and training, or the way in which the vines are placed--will determine more than anything else the success of the undertaking. Grapes depend more upon proper pruning than any other fruit or vegetable in the garden. Two principles must be kept track of
in this work. First principle: the annual crop is borne only on canes of the same year's growth, springing from wood of the previous season's growth. Second principle: the vine, if left to itself, will set three or four times the number of bunches it can properly
mature. As a result of these facts, the following system of pruning has been developed and must be followed for sure and full-sized crops.

(1) At time of planting, cut back to three or four eyes, and after these sprout leave only one (or two) of them, which should be staked up.

(2) Following winter (December to March), leave only one cane and cut this back to three or four eyes.

(3) Second growing season, save only two canes, even if several sprout, and train these to stake or trellis. These two vines, or arms, branching from the main stem, form the foundation for the one-year canes that bear the fruit. However, to prevent the vine's setting too much fruit (see second principle above) these arms must be cut back in order to limit the number of fruit-bearing canes that will spring from them, therefore:

(4) Second winter pruning, cut back these arms to eight or ten buds-- and we have prepared for the first crop of fruit, about forty bunches, as the fruiting cane from each bud will bear two bunches on the average. However these main arms will not bear fruiting-canes another year (see first principle above) and therefore:

(5) At the third winter pruning, (a) of the canes that bore fruit, only the three or four nearest the main stem or trunk are left; (b) these are cut back to eight or ten buds each, and (c) everything else is <ruthlessly cut away.
Each succeeding year the same system is continued, care being taken to rub off, each May, buds or sprouts starting on the main trunk or arms.

The wood, in addition to being cut back, must be well ripened; and the wood does not ripen until after the fruit. It therefore sometimes becomes necessary to cut out some of the bunches in order to hasten the
ripening of the rest. At the same time the application of some potassium fertilizer will be helpful. If the bunches do not ripen up quickly and pretty nearly together, the vine is overloaded and being damaged for
the following year.

The matter of pruning being mastered, the question of training is one of individual choice. Poles, trellises, arbors, walls--almost anything may be used. The most convenient system, however, and the one I would
strongly recommend for practical home gardening for results, is known as the (modified) Kniffen system. It is simplicity itself. A stout wire is stretched five or six feet above the ground; to this the single main trunks of the vine run up, and along it are stretched the two or three arms from which the fruiting-canes hang down. They occupy the least possible space, so that garden crops may be grown practically on the same ground. I have never seen it tried, but where garden space is limited I should think that the asparagus bed and the Kniffen grapearbor just described could be combined to great advantage by placing the vines, in spaces left for them, directly in the asparagus row. Of course the ground would have to be manured for two crops. A 2-8-10
fertilizer is right for the grapes. If using stable manure, apply also potassium fertilizer.

If the old-fashioned arbor is used, the best way is to run the main trunk up over it and cut the laterals back each year to two or three eyes.
The most serious grape trouble which the home gardener is likely to encounter is the black-rot. Where only a few grapes are grown, the simplest way of overcoming this disease is to get a few dozen cheap manila store-bags and fasten one, with a couple of ten-penny nails, over each bunch. Cut the mouth of the bag at sides and edges, cover the bunch, fold the flaps formed over the cane, and fasten.
 They are put on after the bunches are well formed and hasten the ripening of the fruit, as well as protecting it. On a larger scale, spraying will have to be resorted to. Besides the spraying, all trimmed- off wood, old leaves and twigs, withered bunches and grapes, or "mummies," and refuse of every description, should be carefully raked up in the spring and disposed of. Also give clean culture and keep the main stems clean.
The grape completes the list of the small fruits worth while to the average home gardener. If you have not already experimented with them, do not let your garden go any longer without them. They are all easily
obtained, and a very limited number will keep the family table well supplied with healthy delicacies, which otherwise, in their best varieties and condition, could not be had at all. The various operations of setting out, pruning and spraying will soon become as familiar as those in the vegetable garden. There is no reason why every home garden should not have its few rows of small fruits, yielding their delicious harvests in abundance.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Gooseberry - Enemies and Varieties

THE GOOSEBERRY

This is accustomed about the aforementioned analysis as the currant. It is even more important that it should be accustomed the coolest, airiest, location possible, and the best clammy soil. Even a partially black situation will do, but in such situations added affliction charge be taken to guard against the mildew--which is mentioned below. Summer mulching is, of course, of appropriate benefit.

In pruning the gooseberry, it is best to cut out to a actual few, or even to a distinct stem. Keep the arch open, to acquiesce chargeless apportionment of air. The admeasurement of pruning will accomplish a abundant aberration in the admeasurement of the fruit; if bake-apple of the better admeasurement is wanted, clip actual close. All branches angled to the arena should be removed. Keep the branches, as abundant as possible, from affecting anniversary other.

GOOSEBERRY ENEMIES
The currant-worm attacks the gooseberry also, and is effectively handled by the spraying mentioned above.
The abundant agitation in growing gooseberries auspiciously is the powdery mildew--a dirty, blanched fungous advance accoutrement both bake-apple and leaves.

It is abnormally annihilative of the adopted varieties, the ability of which, until the appearance of the potassium sulfide spray, was being practically abandoned. Use 1 oz. of potassium sulfide (liver of sulphur) to 2 gals. water, and mix aloof afore using. Aerosol thoroughly three or four times a month, from the time the blossoms are openinguntil bake-apple is ripe.

GOOSEBERRY VARIETIES
Of the built-in gooseberries--which are the hardiest, Downing and Houghton's Seedling are best used. Industry is an English variety, doing able-bodied here. Golden Prolific, Champion, and Columbus, are other
good adopted sorts, but alone back the bane is auspiciously fought off.

Currants - Pruning, Enemies and Varieties

The currant and gooseberry are very similar in their cultural requirements. A deep, rich and moist soil is the best--approaching a clayey loam. There need be no fear of giving too much manure, but it should be well rotted. Plenty of room, plenty of air, plenty of moisture, secured where necessary by a soil or other mulch in hot dry weather, are essential to the production of the best fruit.

The currant will stand probably as much abuse as any plant the home gardener will have to deal with. Stuck in a corner, smothered in sod, crowded with old wood, stripped by the currant-worm, it still struggles
along from year to year, ever hopefully trying to produce a meager crop of poor fruit. But these are not the sort you want. Although it is so tough, no fruit will respond to good care more quickly.

To have it do well, give it room, four or five feet each way between bushes. Manure it liberally; give it clean cultivation, and as the season gets hot and dry, mulch the soil, if you would be certain of a full-sized, full-flavored crop. Two bushes, well cared for, will yield more than a dozen half-neglected ones. Anywhere north of New York a full crop every year may be made almost certain.

PRUNING CURRANTS

Besides careful cultivation, to insure the best of fruit it is necessary to give some thought to the matter of pruning. The most convenient and the most satisfactory way is to keep it in the bush form. Set the plants singly, three or four feet apart, and so cut the
new growth, which is generously produced, as to retain a uniform bush shape, preferably rather open in the center.

The fruit is produced on wood two or more years old. Therefore cut out branches either when very small, or not until four or five years later, after it has borne two or three crops of fruit. Therefore, in pruning currants, take out (1) superfluous young growth; (2) old hard wood (as new wood will produce better fruit); and (3) all weak, broken, dead or diseased shoots; (4) during summer, if the tips of the young growths kept for fruiting are pinched off, they will ripen up much better-- meaning better fruit when they bear; (5) to maintain a good form, the whole plant may be cut back (never more than one-third) in the fall.

In special situations it may be advisable to train the currant to one or a few main stems, as against a wall; this can be done, but it is less convenient. Also it brings greater danger from the currant-borer.
The black currant, used almost entirely for culinary or preserving purposes, is entirely different from the red and white ones. They are much larger and should be put five to six feet apart. Some of the fruit is borne on one-year-old wood, so the shoots should not be cut back. Moreover, old wood bears as good fruit as the new growth, and need not be cut out, unless the plant is getting crowded, for several years. As the wood is much heavier and stronger than the other currants, it is advisable gradually to develop the black currants into the tree form.

ENEMIES OF THE CURRANT

The worst of these is the common currant-worm. When he appears, which will be indicated by holes eaten in the lower leaves early in spring, generally before the plants bloom, spray at once. For the borer, cut and
dispose of every infested shoot. Examine the bushes in late fall, and those in which the borers are at work will usually have a wilted appearance and be of a brownish color.

VARIETIES OF CURRANTS

Red Dutch, while older and smaller than some of the newer varieties, is hardier and not so likely to be hurt by the borer. London Market, Fay's Prolific, Perfection (new), and Prince Albert, are good sorts. White Grape is a good white. Naples, and Lee's Prolific are good black sorts.

Varieties of berries How many are there?

New strawberries are being introduced constantly; also, they vary greatly in their adaptation to locality. Therefore it is difficult to advise as to what varieties to plant. Once again a catalog from a reputable
nursery will prove invaluable in selecting the right varieties.
The blackberry, dewberry and raspberry are all treated in much the same way. The soil should be well drained, but if a little clayey, so much the better. They are planned preferably in early spring, and set from
three or four to six or seven feet apart, according to the variety.

They should be put in firmly. Set the plants in about as deep as they have been growing, and cut the canes back to six or eight inches. If fruit is wanted the same season as bushes are set, get a few extra plants--they cost but a few cents--and cut back to two feet or so.
Plants fruited the first season are not likely to do well the following year. Two plants may be set in a place and one fruited. If this one is exhausted, then little will be lost. Give clean cultivation frequently enough to maintain a soil mulch, as it is very necessary to retain all the moisture possible. Cultivation, though frequent, should be very shallow as soon as the plants get a good start. In very hot seasons, if the ground is clean, a summer mulch of old hay, leaves or rough manure will be good for the same purpose.

In growing, a good stout stake is used for each plant, to which the canes are tied with some soft material. Or, a stout wire is strung the length of the row and the canes fastened to this--a better way, however, being to string two wires, one on either side of the row. Another very important matter is that of pruning. The plants if left to themselves will throw up altogether too much wood. This must be cut out to four or five of the new canes and all the canes that have borne fruit should be cut and burned each season as soon as through fruiting.
The canes, for instance, that grow in 2009 will be those to fruit in 2010 after which they should be immediately removed. The new canes, if they are to be self-supporting, as sometimes grown, should be cut back when three or four feet high.

It is best, however, to give support. In the case of those varieties which make fruiting side-shoots, as most of the black raspberries (blackcaps) do, the canes should be cut back at two to three feet, and it is well also to cut back these side shoots one-third to one-half, early in the spring.

In cold sections (New York or north of it) it is safest to give winter protection by "laying down" the canes and giving them a mulch of rough material. Having them near the ground is in itself a great protection, as they will not be exposed to sun and wind and will sometimes be covered with snow.

For mulching, the canes are bent over nearly at the soil and a shovelful of earth thrown on the tips to hold them down; the entire canes may then be covered with soil or rough manure, but do not put it on until freezing weather is at hand. If a mulch is used, it must be taken off before growth starts in the spring.

THE BLACKBERRY

The large-growing sorts are set as much as six by eight feet apart, though with careful staking and pruning they may be comfortably handled in less space. The smaller sorts need about four by six. When growth
starts, thin out to four or five canes and pinch these off at about three feet; or, if they are to be put on wires or trellis, they may be cut when tied up the following spring. Cultivate, mulch and prune as suggested above.

Blackberries will do well on a soil a little dry for raspberries and they do not need it quite so rich, as in this case the canes do not ripen up sufficiently by fall, which is essential for good crops. If growing rank they should be pinched back in late August. When tying up in the spring, the canes should be cut back to four or five feet and the laterals to not more than eighteen inches.

Blackberry enemies do not do extensive injury, as a rule, in wellcared- for beds. The most serious are:
(1) the rust or blight, for which there is no cure but carefully pulling and disposing of the plants as fast as infested;
(2) the blackberry-bush borer, which burn infested canes; and
(3) the recently introduced bramble flea-louse, which resembles the green plant-louse or aphids except that it is a brisk jumper, like the flea-beetle. The leaves twist and curl up in summer and do not drop off in the fall. On cold early mornings, or wet weather, while the insects are sluggish, cut all infested shoots, collecting them in a tight box, and dispose.

BLACKBERRY VARIETIES
As with the other small fruits, so many varieties are being introduced that it is difficult to give a list of the best for home use.

THE DEWBERRY
This is really a trailing blackberry and needs the same culture, except
that the canes are naturally slender and trailing and therefore, for
garden culture, must have support. They may be staked up, or a barrel
hoop, supported by two stakes, makes a good support. In ripening, the
dewberry is ten to fourteen days earlier than the blackberry, and for
that reason a few plants should be included in the berry patch.

RASPBERRY
The black and the red types are distinct in flavor, and both should be grown. The blackcaps need more room, about three by six or seven feet; for the reds three by five feet will be sufficient. The blackcaps, and
a few of the reds, throw out fruiting side branches, and should have the main canes cut back at about two and a half feet to encourage the growth of these laterals, which, in the following spring, should be cut back
to about one-third their length. The soil for raspberries should be clayey if possible, and moist, but not wet.

RASPBERRY ENEMIES
The orange rust, which attacks the blackberry also, is a serious trouble. Pull up and dispose of all infested plants at once, as no good remedy has as yet been found. The cut-worm, especially in newly set beds, may sometimes prove destructive of the sprouting young canes. The raspberry-borer is the larva of a small, flattish, red-necked beetle, which bores to the center of the canes during summer growth, and kills
them. Cut and dispose.

RASPBERRY VARIETIES
Of the blackcaps, Gregg, McCormick, Munger, Cumberland, Columbian, Palmer (very early), and Eureka (late), are all good sorts.
Reds: Cuthbert, Cardinal (new), Turner, Reliance, The King (extra early), Loudon (late). Yellow: Golden Queen.

Picture on top right by Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Berries and Small Fruits - Setting, Cultivation and mulching

Besides the tree-fruits discussed in the preceding chapters, there is another class which should be represented in every home garden-- the berries and small fruits. These have the advantage of occupying
much less room than the former do and are therefore available where the others are not.

The methods of giving berries proper cultivation are not so generally known as the methods used with vegetables. Otherwise there is no reason why a few of each should not be included in every garden of average size. Their requirements are not exacting: the amount of skill, or rather of attention, required to care for them is not more than that required by the ordinary vegetables. In fact, once they are well established they will demand less time than the annual vegetables. Of these small fruits the most popular and useful are: the strawberry, the blackberry, dewberry and raspberry, the currant, gooseberry and grape.

The strawberry is the most important, and most amateurs attempt its culture--many, however, with indifferent success. This is due, partly at least, to the fact that many methods are advocated by successful growers, and that the beginner is not likely to pick out one and stick to it; and further, that he is led to pay more attention to how many layers he will have, and at what distance he will set the plants, than to proper selection and preparation of soil and other vital matters.

The soil should be well drained and rich--a good garden soil being suitable. The strawberries should not follow sod or corn. If yard manure is used it should be old and well rotted, so as to be as free as possible from weed seeds. potassium, in some form (see Fertilizers) should be added. The bed should be thoroughly prepared, so that the plants, which need careful transplanting, may take hold at once. A good sunny
exposure is preferable, and a spot where no water will collect is essential.

The plants are grown from "layers." They are taken in two ways: (1) by rooting the runners in the soil; and (2) by layering in pots. In the former method they are either allowed to root themselves, or, which gives decidedly better results, by selecting vines from strong plants and pushing them lightly down into the soil where the new crown is to be formed. In the second method, two-inch or three-inch pots are used, filling these with soil from the bed and plunging, or burying, them level with the surface, just below where the crown is to be formed, and holding the vine in place with a small stone, which serves the additional purpose of marking where the pot is. In either case these layers are made after the fruiting season.

SETTING THE PLANTS

In using the soil-rooted layers, it is generally more satisfactory to set them out in spring, as soon as the ground can be worked, although they are sometimes set in early fall--August or September--when the ground is in very good condition, so that a good growth can at once be made. Care should be used in transplanting. Have the bed fresh; keep the plants out of the soil as short a time as possible; set the plants
in straight, and firm the soil; set just down to the crown--do not cover it. If the soil is dry, or the season late, cut off all old leaves before planting; also shorten back the roots about one-third and be sure not to crowd them when setting, for which purpose a trowel, not a dibble, should be used if the condition of the ground makes the use of any implement necessary. If so dry that water must be used, apply it in the bottom of the hole. If very hot and dry, shade for a day or two.

METHODS OF GROWING

Here I will describe the three systems most valuable for the home garden:
(1) the hill, (2) the matted row, and (3) the pot-layered.

(1) In the hill system the plants are put in single rows, or in beds of three or four rows, the plants one foot apart and the rows, or beds, two or three feet apart. In either case each plant is kept separate, and all runners are pinched off as fast as they form, the idea being to throw all the strength into one strong crown.

(2) In the matted row system the plants are set in single rows, and the runners set in the bed at five or six inches each side of the plants, and then trained lengthways of the row, this making it a foot or so wide.
The runners used to make these secondary crowns must be the first ones sent out by the plants; they should be severed from the parent plants as soon as well rooted. All other runners must be taken off as they form. To keep the beds for a good second crop, where the space between the rows has been kept cultivated and clean, cut out the old plants as soon as the first crop of berries is gathered, leaving the new ones--layered the year before-- about one foot apart.

(3) The pot-layering system, especially for a small number of plants, I consider the best. It will be seen that by the above systems the ground is occupied three years, to get two crops, and the strawberry season is a
short one at best. By this third system the strawberry is made practically an annual, and the finest of berries are produced. The new plants are layered in pots, as described above. The layers are taken immediately
after the fruit is gathered; or better still, because earlier, a few plants are picked out especially to make runners. In either case, fork up the soil about the plants to be layered, and in about fifteen days they will be ready to have the pots placed under them. The main point is to have pot plants ready to go into the new bed as soon as possible after the middle of July.
These are set out as in the hill system, and all runners kept pinched off, so that a large crown has been formed by the time the ground freezes, and a full crop of the very best berries will be assured for the following spring. The pot-layering is repeated each year, and the old plants thrown out, no attempt being made to get a second crop. It will be observed that ground is occupied by the strawberries only the latter
half of the one season and the beginning of the next, leaving ample time for a crop of early lettuce, cabbage or peas before the plants are set, say in 1911, and for late cabbage or celery after the bed is thrown out, in 1912. Thus the ground is made to yield three crops in two years--a very important point where garden space is limited.

CULTIVATION

Whatever system is used--and each has its advocates--the strawberry bed must be kept clean, and attention given to removing the surplus runners. Cultivate frequently enough to keep a dust mulch between the rows, as advocated for garden crops. At first, after setting, the cultivation may be as deep as three or four inches, but as the roots develop and fill the ground it should be restricted to two inches at most.

MULCHING

After the ground freezes, and before severe cold sets in (about the 1st to the 15th of December) the bed should be given its winter mulch. Bog hay, which may be obtained cheaply from some nearby farmer, is about the best material. Clean straw will do. Cover the entire bed, one or
two inches over the plants, and two or three between the rows. If necessary, hold in place with old boards. In spring, but not before the plants begin to grow, over each plant the mulch is pushed aside to let it through. Besides giving winter protection, the mulch acts as a clean even support for the berries and keeps the roots cool and moist.


BERRIES AND SMALL FRUITS

Known Enemies of Apple, Cherry, Peach, Pear and Plum

APPLE ENEMIES

The insects best frequently advancing the angel are the codlin-moth, tent-caterpillar, canker-worm and borer. The codlin-moth lays its eggs on the bake-apple about the time of the falling of the blossoms, and the larvae back hatched eat into the adolescent bake-apple and account the ordinary wormy apples and pears. Owing to these facts, it is too backward to reach the agitation by spraying afterwards the calyx closes on the growing fruit.

Keep abutting watch and aerosol anon aloft the abatement of the blossoms, and echo the spraying a anniversary or so (not added than two) later. During July, tie strips of burlap or old accoutrements about the trunks, and every week or so abort all caterpillars bent in these traps. The tent-caterpillar may be destroyed while in the egg state, as these are audibly arresting around the abate twigs in circular, brownish masses.

The railroad-worm, a baby white bastard which eats a baby aisle in all directions through the ripening fruit, cannot be accomplished by spraying, as he starts activity central the fruit; but area acceptable apple-pie agronomics is practiced and no collapsed bake-apple is larboard to lie and adulteration below the trees,
he is not apt to accord abundant trouble.
The borer's attendance is adumbrated by the dead, addle actualization of the bark, below which he is at work, and additionally by baby amounts of sawdust area he entered. Dig him out with a aciculate pocket-knife, or kill him central with a allotment of wire.
The best alarming ache of the apple, abnormally in wet seasons, is the apple-scab, which disfigures the fruit, both in admeasurement and in appearance, as it causes blotches and distortions.
The San Jose calibration is of advance absolutely an insect, admitting in appearance it seems a disease. It is abundant added abusive than the green fruit grower would suppose, because alongside so. It is actual tiny, being round in outline, with a aloft center, and alone the admeasurement of a small pinhead. Area it has already acquired a acceptable authority it multiplies very rapidly, makes a scaly accumulation or band on the branches, and causes small red-edged spots on the bake-apple . For copse already infested, spray
thoroughly both in fall, afterwards the leaves drop, and afresh in spring, before advance begins.

CHERRY ENEMIES

Sour cherries are added calmly developed than the candied varieties, and are less accountable to the attacks of bake-apple enemies. Candied cherries are troubled by the curculio, or fruit-worm, which attacks additionally peaches and plums. Cherries and plums may be sprayed, back best of the blossoms are off.

PEACH ENEMIES

Do not aerosol peaches. For the curculio, aural a few canicule afterwards the flowers are off, booty a ample area of some bargain actual to use as a catcher. For ample orchards there is a angle of this sort, mounted on a barrow frame, but for the home orchard a brace of sheets laid aloft the ground, or one with a aperture from one ancillary to the center, will suffice. If four short, sharp-pointed stakes are fastened to the corners, and three or four stout hooks and eyes are placed to reunite the aperture afterwards the area is placed about the tree, the assignment can be added thoroughly done, abnormally on asperous ground. Afterwards the sheet
is placed, with a stout club or mallet, bedlam with a abundant sack or something agnate to anticipate abrasion to the bark, accord a few sharp blows, able-bodied up from the ground. This assignment should be done on a cloudy day, or aboriginal in the morning--the colder the better--as the beetles are then inactive. If a ample cardinal of beetles are bent the operation should be again every two or three days. Continue until the beetles disappear.

Peaches are afflicted additionally by borers, in this case adumbrated by masses of gum, usually about the crown. Dig out or annihilate with a wire, as in the case of the apple-borer. Look over the copse for borers every spring, or better, every bounce and fall.
Another acceptable adversary is the "yellows," adumbrated by abortive ripening of the bake-apple and the accumulation of bantam blade tufts, of a ablaze yellow color. This ache is catching and has frequently formed calamity in whole sections. Owing to the assignment of the Agricultural Department and the assorted Accompaniment organizations it is now captivated in check. The only remedy is to cut and actuate of the copse and replant, in the aforementioned places if desired, as, the ache does not assume to be agitated by the soil.

PEAR ENEMIES

Pears are sometimes afflicted with a band agnate to the apple-scab, and this is combated by the aforementioned analysis of spraying A bane which causes the leaves aback to about-face atramentous and die and also kills some baby branches and produces sores or wounds on large branches and trunk, offers addition difficulty. Cut out and actuate of all affected branches and scrape out all sores.

PLUM ENEMIES

Plums accept abounding enemies but auspiciously they can all be effectively checked. Aboriginal is the curculio, to be advised as declared above.
For leaf-blight--spotting and bottomward off of the leaves about midsummer- attenuate out the bake-apple so that it does not adhere thickly enough for the plums to arise in acquaintance with anniversary other.
In a able-bodied kept and able-bodied sprayed orchard black-knot is not at all likely to appear. It is actual apparent wherever it starts, causing ugly, black, distorted knarls, at aboriginal on the abate limbs. Remove and actuate of immediately, and accumulate a aciculate watch for more. As this ache is supposed to be agitated by the wind, see to it that no absent-minded neighbor is bartering you with the germs.
The affection of bake-apple will depend actual abundantly aloft the affliction exercised in acrimonious and storing. Picking, abominably done, while it may not at the time appearance any arresting bad results, will aftereffect in poor befitting and rot. If the tissue beef are broken, as abounding will be by asperous handling,
they will be accessible to account rotten spots below the aboriginal favorable conditions, and again the rot will spread. Best of the fruits of the home garden, which do not accept to abide shipping, will be of better
quality area they decline absolutely on the tree. Pears, however, are often ripened in the aphotic and afterwards picking, abnormally the winter sorts.

Apples and pears for winter use should be kept, if possible, in a cold, dark place, area there is no bogus heat, and area the air will be moist, but never wet, and area the thermometer will not abatement below
thirty-two degrees. Aloft awfully algid nights the temperature may be kept up by application an oil stove or absolution in calefaction from the furnace basement, if that is adjacent. In such a place, abundance the bake-apple loosely, on aerial shelves, not added than six or eight inches deep. If they must be kept in a acrimonious place, backpack in bound boxes or barrels, being careful to put abroad alone absolute fruit, or backpack in beach or leaves.
Otherwise they will lose abundant in affection by shriveling, due to abridgement of moisture in the atmosphere. With affliction they may be had in prime quality until backward in the afterward spring.

Do not let yourself be beat from growing your own bake-apple by the necessity for demography acceptable affliction of your trees. Afterwards all, you do not have to bulb them every year, as you do vegetables, and they crop a splendid acknowledgment on the baby advance required. Do not abort to set out at atomic a few this year with the abounding affirmation that your satisfaction is affirmed by the facts in the case.

Pruning, Spraying, Harvesting - Three simple things

The day has gone, probably forever, when setting out fruit trees and giving them occasional cultivation,
"plowing up the orchard" once in several years, would produce fruit. Apples and pears and peaches have
occupied no preferred position against the general invasion of the realm of horticulture by insect and fungous
enemies. The fruits have, indeed, suffered more than most plants.

Nevertheless there is this encouraging fact: that, though the fruits may have been severely attacked, the means we now have of fighting fruit-tree enemies, if thoroughly used, as a rule are more certain of accomplishing
their purpose, and keeping the enemies completely at bay, than are similar weapons in any other line of horticultural work.

With fruit trees, as with vegetables and flowers, the most important precaution to be taken against insects and disease is to have them in a healthy, thriving, growing condition. It is a part of Nature's law of the survival of the fittest that any backward or weakling plant or tree seems to fall first prey to the ravages of destructive forces.
For these reasons the double necessity of maintaining at all times good fertilization and thorough cultivation will be seen. In addition to these two factors, careful attention in the matter of pruning is essential in keeping the trees in a healthy, robust condition. As explained in a previous chapter, the trees should be started right by pruning the first season to the open-head or vase shape, which furnishes the maximum of light and air to all parts of the tree. Three or four main branches should form the basis of the head, care being taken not to have them start from directly opposite points on the trunk, thus forming a crotch and leaving the tree liable to splitting from winds or excessive crops. If the tree is once started right, further pruning will give little trouble.

 Cut out limbs which cross, or are likely to rub against each other, or that are too close together; and also any that are broken, decayed, or injured in any way. For trees thus given proper attention from the start, a short jackknife will be the only pruning instrument required.
The case of the old orchard is more difficult. Cutting out too many of the old, large limbs at one time is sure to give a severe shock to the vitality of the tree. A better plan is, first, to cut off close all suckers and all small new-growth limbs, except a few of the most promising, which may be left to be developed into large limbs; and then as these new limbs grow on, gradually to cut out, using a fine-tooth saw and painting the exposed surfaces, the surplus old wood. Apples will need more pruning than the other fruits. Pears and cherries need the least; cutting back the ends of limbs enough to keep the trees in good form, with the removal of an occasional branch for the purpose of letting in light and air, is all the pruning they will require. Of course trees growing on rich ground, and well cultivated, will require more cutting back than those growing under
poorer conditions. A further purpose of pruning is to effect indirectly a thinning of the fruit, so that what is grown will be larger and more valuable, and also that the trees may not become exhausted by a few exceptionally heavy crops. On trees that have been neglected and growing slowly the bark sometimes becomes hard and set. In such cases it will prove beneficial to scrape the bark and give a wash applied with an old broom. Whitewash is good for this purpose.

Where extra fine specimens of fruit are desired, thinning is practiced. It helps also to prevent the tree from being overtaxed by excessive crops. But where pruning is thoroughly done this trouble is usually avoided. Peaches and Japan plums are especially benefited by thinning, as they have a great tendency to overbear. The spread of fruit diseases, especially rot in the fruit itself, is also to some extent checked.
Of fruit-tree enemies there are some large sorts which may do great damage in short order--rabbits and field mice. They may be kept away by mechanical protection, such as wire, or by heaping the earth up to a
height of twelve inches about the tree trunk. Insects and scale diseases are not so easily managed; and that brings us to the question of spraying and of sprays.

For large orchards the spray must, of course, be applied with powerful and expensive machinery. For the small fruit garden a much simpler and very moderate priced apparatus may be acquired. The most practical of these is the brass-tank compressed-air sprayer, with extension rod and mist-spray nozzle. Either of these will be of great assistance not only with the fruit trees, but everywhere in the garden. With care they will last a good many years. Whatever type you get, be sure to get a brass machine; as cheaper ones, made of other metal or plastic , quickly corrode from contact with the strong chemicals used.

For help in determining the type of infestation contact your County Cooperative Extension Service office. County Cooperative Extension Service offices are usually listed in the telephone directory under county
or state government; these offices often have a range of resources on garden care and maintenance, including plant selection, pest control, and soil testing.

Planting - | - Setting and Cultivation


SETTING

Standard apple trees, fully grown, will require thirty to forty-five feet of space between them each way. It takes, however, ten or twelve years after the trees are set before all of this space is needed. A system of "fillers," or inter-planting, has come into use as a result of this, which will give at least one hundred per cent, more fruit for the first ten years. Small-growing standards, standard varieties on dwarf stock, and also peaches, are used for this purpose in commercial orchards. But the principle may be applied with equally good results to the home orchard, or even to the planting of a few scattered trees. The standard dwarfs give good satisfaction as permanent fillers. Where space is very limited, or the fruit must go into the garden, they may be used in place of the standard sorts altogether. The dwarf trees are, as a rule, not so long-lived as the standards, and to do their best, need more care in fertilizing and manuring; but the fruit is just as good; just as much, or more, can be grown on the same area; and the trees come into bearing two to three years sooner. They cost less to begin with and are also easier to care for, in spraying and pruning and in picking the fruit.

CULTIVATION

The home orchard, to give the very finest quality of fruit, must be given careful and thorough cultivation. In the case of scattered trees, where it is not practicable to use a horse, this can be given by working a space four to six feet wide about each tree. Every spring the soil should be loosened up, with the cultivator or fork, as the case may be, and kept stirred during the early part of the summer. Unless the soil is rich, a fertilizer, high in potassium and not too high in nitrogen, should be given in the spring. Manure and phosphate rock, as
suggested above, is as good as any. In case the foliage is not a deep healthy green, apply a few handfuls of nitrate of soda, working it into the soil just before a rain, around each tree.

About August 1st the cultivation should be discontinued, and some "cover crop" sown. Buckwheat and crimson clover is a good combination; as the former makes a rapid growth it will form, if rolled down just as
the apples are ripening, a soft cushion upon which the windfalls may drop without injury, and will furnish enough protection to the crimson clover to carry it through most winters, even in cold climates.

In addition to the filler crops, where the ground is to be cultivated by tractor, potatoes may be grown between the rows of trees; or fine hills of melons or squash may be grown around scattered trees, thus,
incidentally, saving a great deal of space in the vegetable garden. Or why not grow a few extra fancy strawberries in the well cultivated spots about these trees? Neither they nor the trees want the ground too
rich, especially in nitrogen, and conditions suiting the one would be just right for the others.

It may seem to the beginner that fruit-growing, with all these things to keep in mind, is a difficult task. But it is not. I think I am perfectly safe in saying that the rewards from nothing else he can plant and care for are as certain, and surely none are more satisfactory. If you cannot persuade yourself to try fruit on any larger plan, at least order half a dozen dwarf trees (they will cost about twenty cents apiece, and can be had by mail). They will prove about the best paying investment you ever made.

Imageon top right by: xedos4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Planting - How to do it - Step by step

PLANTING: CULTIVATION: FILLER CROPS
In this post we talk about Planting

As the full-blooded and the affection of the banal you bulb will accept a great accord to do with the success
or abortion of your adventitious in orcharding, alike on a absolute small scale, it is important to get the best trees you can, anywhere, at any price. But do not jump to the conclusion that the best costly trees will be the best. From reliable nurserymen, affairs absolute by mail, you can get acceptable copse at very reasonable prices.
As a accepted affair you will accomplish best if you accept annihilation to do with the abiding "tree agent." He may represent a acceptable firm; you may get your copse on time; he may accept a change as acceptable as the standard sorts; but you are demography three absolute abundant affairs in bold so. But, leaving these questions aside, there is no accurate acumen why you should advice pay his traveling costs and the press bills for his lithographs ("made from absolute photographs" or "painted from nature," of course!) aback you can get the best copse to be had, absolute from the soil in which they are grown, at the everyman prices, by acclimation through the mail.

Or, added acceptable still, if the nursery is not too far away, booty bisected a day off and select them in person. If you appetite to advice the abettor forth present him with the bulk of his commission, but get your copse absolute from some large reliable nursery.

Well developed nursery banal will bend abundant abuse, but it will not be at all improved by it. Do not let castigation bend about in the sun and wind, waiting until you get a adventitious to set it out. As anon as you get it home from the express office, ameliorate it and "heel it in," in moist, but not wet, ground; if beneath a shed, so abundant the better. Dig out a attenuated arroyo and backpack it in as blubbery as it will go, at an bend of blaster degrees to the accustomed position when growing. So stored, it will accumulate a continued time in algid weather, alone be careful that no rats, mice, or rabbits ability it.
Do not, however, depend aloft this ability to the admeasurement of absolution all your affairs for burying go until your banal is on hand. Be accessible to set it the day it arrives, if possible.

PLANTING

Planting can be done in either bounce or fall. As a accepted rule, arctic of Philadelphia and St. Louis, bounce burying will be best; south of that, fall planting. Area there is apt to be astringent freezing, "heaving," acquired by the alternating freezing and thawing; abrasion to the anew set roots from too severe cold; and, in some western sections, "sun-scald" of the bark, are three injuries which may result. If copse are buried in the abatement in cold sections, a low bank of earth, six to twelve inches high, should be left during the winter about each, and collapsed bottomward in the spring. If set in the spring, area hot, dry acclimate is apt to follow, they should be thoroughly mulched with litter, harbinger or base manure, to preserve moisture--care actuality taken, however, adjoin acreage mice and added rodents.

The copse may either be set in their abiding positions as anon as bought, or developed in "nursery rows" by the client for one or two years afterwards actuality purchased. In the aloft case, it will be the best
policy to get the strongest, straightest two-year banal you can find, even if they amount ten or fifteen cents apiece added than the "mediums."
The aloft adjustment is the accepted one, but the closing has so many advantages that I accord it the accent of a abstracted paragraph, and urge every -to-be agriculturalist to accede it carefully.
In the aboriginal place, then, you get your copse a little cheaper. This gain, however, is not an important one--there are four others, anniversary of which makes it account while to accord the adjustment a trial. First, the copse being all together, and in a acceptable place, the affairs are a hundred to one that you will accord them added acceptable absorption in the way of spraying, pruning and cultivating--all acutely important in the aboriginal year's growth. Second, with the year acquired for added alertness of the soil area they are to be placed permanently, you can accomplish conditions just appropriate for them to booty authority at already and beforehand as they could not do otherwise. Third, the shock of clearing will be abundant beneath than when they are alien from a distance--they will accept fabricated an added growth of dense, abbreviate roots and they will accept become acclimated. Fourth, you will not accept ashen amplitude and time with any astern atramentous sheep amid the lot, as these should be alone at the additional planting. And afresh there is
one added reason, cerebral perhaps, but none the beneath important; you will watch these little trees, which are abundantly the aftereffect of your own labor and care, aback set in their abiding positions, abundant added carefully than you would those absolute from the nursery. I know, both from experience and observation, how abounding thrifty adolescent copse in the home orchard are done to an abortive afterlife by children, absent-minded workmen, and other animals.

So if you can put a twelve-month barrier on your impatience, get one-year trees and set them out in a beeline row appropriate in your vegetable garden where they will booty up absolute little room. Accumulate them able aloof as thoroughly as the blow of your growing things. Melons, or beans, or almost any low-growing vegetable can be developed abutting beside them. Let us accept that your copse are at hand, either absolute from the nursery or growing in the garden. You accept selected, if possible, a moist, abrasive adobe on a abruptness or slight elevation, area it is naturally and altogether drained. Acceptable clay arising is imperative.
Coarse alluvium in the basal of the burying aperture will advice out temporarily. If the acreage is in clover sod, it will accept the ideal preparation, abnormally if you can abound a application of potatoes or blah on
it one year, while your copse are accepting added growth. In such land the holes will not accept to be prepared. If, however, you are not fortunate abundant to be able to allot such a amplitude to bake-apple trees, and in adjustment to accept them at all charge abode them forth your bank or scattered through the grounds, you can still accord them an excellent start by adorning the clay in spots beforehand, as appropriate aloft in growing lima beans. In the accident of award alike this aftermost way inapplicable to your land, the afterward adjustment will accomplish success certain: Dig out holes three to six anxiety in bore (if the clay is
very hard, the beyond dimension), and twelve to eighteen inches deep.
Mix thoroughly with the biconcave clay a acceptable caster barrow abounding of the oldest, finest admixture you can get, accumulated with about division or one-fifth its weight of South Carolina bedrock (or acerbic phosphate, if you cannot get the rock). It is a acceptable plan to admixture the admixture and bedrock in advance, or use the bedrock as an absorptive in the stable. Fill in the aperture again, leaving allowance in the centermost to set the timberline after angle or cramping any roots. Area any of these are afflicted or bruised, cut them off clean at the afflicted atom with a aciculate knife. Shorten any that are long and straggling about one-third to one-half their length. Properly grown stock should not be in any such condition. Remember that a able-bodied buried timberline will accord added bake-apple in the aboriginal ten years than three copse abominably put in. Get the timberline so that it will be one to three inches added in the clay than aback growing in the nursery.

Work the clay in durably about the roots with the fingers or a edgeless wooden "tamper"; do not be abashed to use your feet. Aback the roots are well covered, close the timberline in by putting all your weight aloft the soil around it. See that it is buried straight, and if the "whip," or small trunk, is not beeline pale it, and tie it with rye straw, raffia or strips of old cloth-never cord or wire. If the clay is absolute dry, water the basis abundantly while burying until the clay is about bisected abounding in, never on the surface, as that is acceptable to account a band to anatomy and keep out the air so all-important to advantageous growth.
Prune aback the "leader" of the tree-the top aloft the aboriginal lateral branches, about one-half. Peach copse should be cut aback added severely. Further advice in attention to pruning, and the altered needs of
the assorted fruits in attention to this important matter, will be accustomed in the abutting chapter.