Agriculture for Beginners by Daniel Harvey Hill (ebook reader 7 inch .TXT) π
The joint action of air, moisture, and frost was still another agent of soil-making. This action is called weathering. Whenever you have noticed the outside stones of a spring-house, you have noticed that tiny bits are crumbling from the face of the stones, and adding little by little to the soil. This is a slow way of making additions to the soil. It is estimated that it would take 728,000 years to wear away limestone rock to a depth of thirty-nine inches. But when you recall the countless years through which the weather has striven against the rocks, you can readily understand that its never-wearying activity has added immensely to the soil.
In the rock soil formed in these various ways, and indeed on the rocks themselves, tiny plants that live on food taken from the air began to grow. They grew just as you now see mosses and lichens grow on the surface of rocks. The decay of these plants added some fertility to the newly formed soil. The life and death of
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Fig. 68. Cleft Grafting
Luther Burbank, the originator of the Burbank potato, in attempting to find a variety of apple suited to the climate of California, grafted more than five hundred kinds of apple scions on one tree, so that he might watch them side by side and find out which kind was best suited to that state.
SECTION XXIII. BUDDINGFig. 69. How to cut a
Bud from a Scion
If, instead of an apple tree, you were raising a plum or a peach tree, a form of propagation known as budding would be better than grafting. Occasionally budding is also employed for apples, pears, cherries, oranges, and lemons. Budding is done in the following manner. A single bud is cut from the scion and is then inserted under the bark of a one-year-old peach seedling, so that the cambium of the bud and stock may grow together.
Fig. 70. The Steps in Budding
Fig. 71. Sloping
line shows where
to cut tree
Fig. 72.
Lines show where
to trim
Cut scions of the kind of fruit tree you desire from a one-year-old twig of the same variety. Wrap them in a clean, moist cloth until you are ready to use them. Just before using cut the bud from the scion, as shown in Fig. 69. This bud is now ready to be inserted on the north side of the stock, just two or three inches above the ground. The north side is selected to avoid the sun. Now, as shown at a in Fig. 70, make a cross and an up-and-down incision, or cut, on the stock; pull the bark back carefully, as shown in B; insert the bud C, as shown in D; then fold the bark back and wrap with yarn or raffia, as shown in E. As soon as the bud and branches have united, remove the wrapping to prevent its cutting the bark and cut the tree back close to the bud, as in Fig. 71, so as to force nourishment into the inserted bud.
Budding is done in the field without disturbing the tree as it stands in the ground. The best time to do budding is during the summer or fall months, when the bark is loose enough to allow the buds to be easily inserted.
Trees may be budded or grafted on one another only when they are nearly related. Thus the apple, crab-apple, hawthorn, and quince are all related closely enough to graft or bud on one another; the pear grows on some hawthorns, but not well on an apple; some chestnuts will unite with some kinds of oaks.
By using any of these methods you can succeed in getting with certainty the kind of tree that you desire.
BOTH BUSY STORING APPLES SECTION XXIV. PLANTING AND PRUNING
Fig. 73.
Present shape comes
from pruning
The apple tree that you grafted should be set out in the spring. Dig a hole three or four feet in diameter where you wish the tree to grow. Place the tree in the hole and be very careful to preserve all the fine roots. Spread the roots out fully, water them, and pack fine, rich soil firmly about them. Place stakes about the young tree to protect it from injury. If the spot selected is in a windy location, incline the tree slightly toward the prevailing wind.
Fig. 74.
Correct shape
to trim
You must prune the tree as it grows. The object of pruning is to give the tree proper shape and to promote fruit-bearing. If the bud at the end of the main shoot grows, you will have a tall, cone-shaped tree. If, however, the end of the young tree be cut or "headed back" to the lines shown in Fig. 72, the buds below this point will be forced to grow and make a tree like that shown in Fig. 73. The proper height of heading for different fruits varies. For the apple tree a height of two or three feet is best.
Fig. 75.
Unthinned
Fig. 76.
Properly thinned
Cutting an end bud of a shoot or branch always sends the nourishment and growth into the side buds. Trimming or pinching off the side buds throws the growth into the end bud. You can therefore cause your tree to take almost any shape you desire. The difference between the trees shown in Figs. 73 and 74 is entirely the result of pruning. Fig. 74 illustrates in general a correctly shaped tree. It is evenly balanced, admits light freely, and yet has enough foliage to prevent sun-scald. Figs. 75 and 76 show the effect of wisely thinning the branches.
The best time to prune is either in the winter or before the buds start in the spring. Winter pruning tends to favor wood-production, while summer pruning lessens wood-production and induces fruitage.
Each particular kind of fruit requires special pruning; for example, the peach should be made to assume the shape illustrated in Fig. 77. This is done by successive trimmings, following the plan illustrated in Figs. 71, 78, 79. You will gain several advantages from these trimmings. First, nourishment will be forced into the peach bud that you set on your stock. This will secure a vigorous growth of the scion. By a second trimming take off the "heel" (Fig. 78, h) close to the tree, and thus prevent decay at this point. One year after budding you should reduce the tree to a "whip," as in Fig. 79, by trimming at the dotted line in Fig. 78. This establishes the "head" of the tree, which in the case of the peach should be very low,βabout sixteen inches from the ground,βin order that a low foliage may lessen the danger of sun-scald to the main trunk.
Fig. 77. The Customary Way of pruning a Peach
Fig. 78. Two-Year-Old Tree
Cut off heel, h
In pruning never leave a stump such as is shown in Fig. 78, h. Such a stump, having no source of nourishment, will heal very slowly and with great danger of decay. If this heel is cleanly cut on the line ch (Fig. 78), the wound will heal rapidly and with little danger of decay. Leaving such a stump endangers the soundness of the whole tree. Fig. 80 shows the results of good and poor pruning on a large tree. When large limbs are removed it is best to paint the cut surface. The paint will ward off fungous disease and thus keep the tree from rotting where it was cut.
Pruning that leaves large limbs branching, as in Fig. 74, a, is not to be recommended, since the limbs when loaded with fruit or when beaten by heavy winds are liable to break. Decay is apt to set in at the point of breakage. The entrance of decay-fungi through some such wound or through a tiny crevice at such a crotch is the beginning of the end of many a fruitful tree.
Fig. 79. Three-Year-Old Tree cut back
Fig. 80. Three-Year-Old Tree cut back
Refuses to HealβHeals promptly
Sometimes a tree will go too much to wood and too little to fruit. This often happens in rich soil and may be remedied by another kind of pruning known as root-pruning. This consists in cutting off a few of the roots in order to limit the food supply of the plant. You ought to learn more about root-pruning, however, before you attempt it.
How is a peach tree made? First, the blossom appears. Then pollination and fertilization occur. The fruit ripens. The pit, or seed, is saved. In the spring of the next year the seed is planted. The young tree, known as the stock, comes up quickly. In August of that year a bud of the variety which is wanted is inserted in the little stock, near the ground. One year later, in the spring, the stock is cut off just above the bud. The bud throws out a shoot, which grows to a height of about six feet, and in the fall this little peach tree is sold as a one-year-old tree. However, as is seen, the root is two years old.
Fig. 81. Ready to bear
How is an apple tree made? The seeds are saved in the fall of one year and planted the following year. The seedlings of the apple do not grow so rapidly as those of the peach. At the end of the year they are taken up and sorted, and in the following spring they are planted. In July or August they are budded. In the spring of the next year the stock is cut off above the bud, and the bud-shoot grows three or four feet. One year later the shoot branches and the top begins to form; and in the fall of the following year the tree may be sold as a two-year-old, although most persons prefer to buy it a year later as a three-year-old. In some parts of the country, particularly in the West, the little seedling is grafted in the second winter, in a grafting room, and the young grafts are set in the nursery row in the spring to complete their growth.
The planting in the orchard of the young peach and the young apple tree is done in practically the same way. After the hole for the tree has been dug and after proper soil has been provided, the roots should be spread and the soil carefully packed around them.
EXERCISE
Do you know any trees in your neighborhood that bear both wild and budded or grafted fruit? What are the chief varieties of apples grown in your neighborhood? grapes? currants? plums? cherries? figs? What is a good apple tree worth? Is there any land near by that could support a tree and is not now doing so? Examine several orchards and see whether the trees have the proper shape. Do you see any evidence of poor pruning? Do you find any heels? Can you see any place where heels have resulted in rotten or hollow trees? How could you have prevented this? Has the removal of branches ever resulted in serious decay? How is this to be prevented?
If your home is not well stocked with all the principal kinds of fruit, do you not want to propagate and attend to some of each kind? You will be surprised to find how quickly trees will bear and how soon you will be eating fruit from your own planting. Growing your own trees will make you feel proud of your skill.
CHAPTER V HORTICULTURE SECTION XXV. MARKET-GARDENINGThe word horticulture is one of those broad words under which much is grouped. It includes the cultivation of orchard fruits, such as apples and plums; of small fruits, such as strawberries and raspberries; of garden vegetables for the table; of flowers of all sorts, including shrubbery and ornamental trees and their arrangement into beautiful landscape effects around our homes. Horticulture then is a name for an art that is both far-reaching and important.
The word gardening is generally given to that part of horticulture which has for its chief aim the raising of vegetables for our tables.
Flower-gardening, or the cultivation of plants valued for their bloom in making ornamental beds and borders and furnishing flowers for the decoration of the home, is generally called floriculture. Landscape-gardening is the art of so arranging flower-beds, grass, shrubbery, and trees as to produce pleasing effects in the grounds surrounding our homes and in great public parks and pleasure grounds.
Landscape-gardening, like architecture, has developed intoll as the artist makes them on canvas, but uses natural objects in his pictures instead of paint and canvas.
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