Part 55

How on earth do men suppose a fruit to receive its characteristic quality? Is it from the root, trunk, pith, bark, branch, or leaf? One would think that it made no difference which. We have long supposed that the leaf digested the sap, returned it to the passages of distribution to be employed in the formation of fruit, wood, tissue, etc. Is this the function of the leaf? or have recent investigations exploded this doctrine? If not, it will be apparent that all grafting of scions together, cannot change the quality of fruit, unless the leaves are also amalgamated. Is a red, green, yellow, and white fruit, sweet, sour, or bitter, be put upon the same tree, each will maintain its characteristics; because, each bud or scion has its own peculiar leaves, from whose laboratory the fruit is sweetened or acidulated and colored with all its hues. To be sure, fruits are affected by the stock on which they are put; but their characteristic elements are not altered, but only pushed along in the same line and made more perfect.

There is no doubt that trees indulge, occasionally, in rare antics. A sober apple-tree will sometimes let down its dignity, in what gardeners call a “sport,” e. g. a sweet apple may grow on a sour tree, and vice versâ. An apple may on one side be sweet and on the other sour. But, in such cases, the same general law is seen governing yet. We all know that great changes of temperament occur in men. A nervous temperament often becomes abdominal, and a little, wiry, fussy, peevish, minikin, becomes a round, plump, rosy, corpulent spot of good nature. Similar changes may occur, through disease, or the peculiarity of the season, or from unknown causes, in the structure of the leaves of a branch, and then the fruit will follow the change of the leaf.

But the fruit itself digests still further the elaborated sap sent to it from the leaf. If, then, from any hidden causes, the fruit should in part change its structure, the juices elaborated would be altered. If stamens and pistils may change to petals, if petals may change to leaves, if leaves may extend to branches, we know of no reason why the whole or the half of a fruit may not, also, alter its structure; and with its peculiarity of function, also, of course, the character of the fruit. While then we are not skeptical of “monsters,” “marvels,” “sports,” “singularities,” we think we can trace the original law through all the transmutations.

PROTECTING THE ROOTS OF FRUIT-TREES.

Cultivators are frequently urged in Horticultural papers to cover the roots of the peach-trees with heaps of snow, etc., that they may be retarded in the spring, and escape injury from late frosts upon their blossoms. This direction takes it for granted that the warmth of the ground starts the root, and the root starts the sap, and the sap wakes up the dormant branch. By covering the soil and keeping it back, the whole tree is supposed to be secured. But, unfortunately for this process, the motion of the sap is first in the BRANCHES, and last in the roots. Light and heat, exerted upon the branches for any considerable length of time, produce a high state of excitability; the sap begins to move toward the bud, its place is supplied by a portion lower down, and so on until the whole column of sap through the trunk is in motion, and last of all in the ROOT. But suppose warm, spring days, with a temperature of from sixty degrees to sixty-five degrees, have produced a vigorous motion of the sap in the branches and trunk, while the root, (thanks to snow and ice piled over it to keep it frozen), is dormant, what will result? The sap already within the tree will be exhausted, the root will supply none, the light and heat still push on the development of bud and leaf and the tree will exhaust itself and die. We not long since observed a remarkable confirmation of these reasonings. A gentleman of our acquaintance, in reading these unskilfull directions to cover the peach-tree root, opened trenches about his trees, and filled them with snow, heaping bountifully also all about the trees. The next spring, long after his trees should have been at work, the snow held the root fast; the buds swelled and burst, lingered, shrivelled and died—and the trees too. This might have been prognosticated. There are partial methods of protecting the peach from too early development, but they all have respect to the protection of the limbs. If the branches can be covered during the random and prematurely hot days of spring, the tree will not suffer. High, and cool-aired aspects, north hill-sides, northern sides of houses, barns, etc., will answer this purpose. When it can be afforded, long boards may be set up upon the east and south sides of choice trees, upon a frame slightly made and easily removed.

The reason why more damage has not been done by covering peach-tree roots, than has occurred, is, that the ground has been superficially frozen, and many of the roots extending deeper and laterally beyond the congealed portions, have afforded a supply of sap after a motion had been imparted to it in the branches.

PRUNING GRAPE VINES.

All know that after the sap begins to flow in the spring, a vine, if cut, will bleed. It seems that at this early period of its development the sap vessels have no power of contraction. Many suppose that the same state of things continues throughout the growing season, and are afraid to cut their vines. But after the vine has begun to grow freely (when the leaves, for example, are as large as the palm of one’s hand), a wound very soon contracts, bleeds little or none, and heals over as in a tree. Any pruning which is necessary upon the old wound may, therefore, be fearlessly performed.

Some inexpert cultivators, in order to let the sun fall upon the grapes, pluck off the leaves; hoping thus to procure sweeter grapes. This is the very way to have acid fruit. Where is the sugar prepared for the cluster but in these very leaves which are taken off? Without leaves, the sap which flows into the cluster has undergone but imperfectly those chemical changes on which the fruit depends. Every leaf in the neighborhood of the fruit is precious.

MILDEW ON GRAPES.

Many permit the fruit of the vines to perish before their eyes from the ravages of mildew, ignorant that an effectual remedy is within their reach. It is simply to dust the branches with flowers of sulphur. It is best done while the dew is on.

When vines are trained upon the sides of a house or fence, it is well to whitewash the surfaces on which they are fastened with a wash in which flowers of sulphur has been largely mixed.

It is recommended by some cultivators to employ such a whitewash for the wood of the vine, covering all the main stems with it; but all these methods result in the one thing—the application of sulphur as a remedy for mildew.

HOW TO OBTAIN GRAPE VINES.

Grafting is only practised on the vine for special reasons, and we have never had occasion to try it. We shall speak of a better mode of obtaining vines.

The best method of “getting a start” of grape vines is, by the employment of cuttings. These may be planted immediately after the spring pruning of established vines. But cuttings of native grapes are as well planted in the fall. The granulation, from which the roots spring, will form during the winter, and the cuttings, starting early in the spring, will make good growth the first year. Cuttings are the best, because they can be procured easily, abundantly, and cheaply; they will bear carriage to any distance, are exceedingly tenacious of life, and they make thriftier plants. Cuttings may be set, either where they are to remain, in which case several should be set, to allow for failures, and only the strongest finally retained; or, they may be set in nursery rows, eight inches apart. Cuttings should be inserted about eight inches deep, and have two eyes or buds above the surface. The two buds are merely precautionary; that if one fails the other may sprout; one only, and that the strongest, should finally be permitted to grow.

An old and skillful cultivator of the vine says that cuttings are the best of all modes of securing a supply of vines. “For my part I am for scions without roots, after many experiments. All the advantage the one with roots has over the other, is that they are more sure to live; but they will not in general, make as thrifty plants.”—J. J. Dufour.

This only objection to cuttings—that a part of them fail to root—is of little practical importance, as they are easily obtained in any quantity.

AUTUMNAL MANAGEMENT OF FRUIT-TREES.

Orchardists and cultivators of garden-fruit will have need of all their skill to prepare tender fruit-trees for winter. It is the misfortune, alike of the English summers, and of ours in the West, that trees do not properly ripen their wood. But in Great Britain it is from the want of enough, and in America, from too much summer. Our long and hot summers give two or three separate growths to fruit-trees, and the last one is usually in progress at a period so late that severe frosts and freezings overtake the tree while yet in an excitable state, pushing new wood, and with a top quite unripened for severe frosty handling.

The year 1845 furnished a fine type of western summers. The spring came in very properly, and at so late a period that the usual frosts, after the expansion of leaves, were avoided. The summer opened warmly and continued with almost unvarying heat throughout. At the same time there were frequent and copious rains.

By this statement the average temperature of June was 71°, and the rain 6-1/ , inches; of July, average noon heat 80°, rain 3¼ inches; of August, average noon heat 80°, rain 5½ inches. Nights were exceedingly warm. The day repeatedly opened and closed at 80°. Our thermometer on the north of our house, in a shady yard, stood for eight and ten days together between 94° and 100°, twice attaining the latter height.

Under such stimulus our pear, apple and plum-trees, made their first growth by the first of July. They soon started into a second growth, which wound up during the last of August and the first of September, plum-trees entirely shedding their leaves and standing as bare as in January.

Let orchards be examined when frosts begin to occur, and every side-shoot, sucker or water-sprout, cut cleanly out. These succulent, raw sprouts are the breeding-spots of disease. Cold-blight invariably manifests itself in them in the most positive form..

Garden trees, choice pears, and stone-fruits, should, in addition to this operation, if still in growth at the last of September, receive a fall pruning. From the first to the middle of October, according to the season, cut off two-thirds of the new growth, or back to strong, ripe wood. It is well known that the newest buds, near the extremity of young wood, are the most sensitive and apt to break and grow, whereas the buds near the base of a branch are dormant. It is the repose of the older buds which makes fall pruning, if performed with judgment, so valuable. Because it forces the tree to expend its energies in ripening its wood instead of making more, and it also tends to induce fruitfulness by changing leaf-buds to fruit-buds. The great art of fall pruning is to relieve the tree of its crude wood without causing its dormant buds to break. If performed too early, or if but the tips of the fine wood are removed, the new buds may break and side-shoots issue, leaving the tree worse off than before.

Young trees just coming into bearing should have their trunks protected. That there is a change in the economy of a tree when it begins to bear is plain; and experience seems to teach that trees are peculiarly tender at the time of this change, since they are far more apt to die when coming to fruit, than either before or afterward. Cherry-trees and pear-trees should have brush, or corn-stalks, or straw, or matting, as is most convenient, so placed from the ground to the branches, as to exclude the sun without excluding air. An hour’s attention may save much regret.

PEARS GRAFTED UPON THE APPLE STOCK.

We do not think the pear does so well in any other way as on its own root. But it has been found extremely difficult to obtain the requisite stock. Pear-seeds are scarce. When obtained, the seedlings have proved intractable, and left the nurseryman oftentimes in the lurch. The first and best substitute for pear-stock, is the root of the pear—great quantities may be obtained when removing pear-trees in the autumn from the nursery, and also without any injury to the trees, roots may be taken from old bearing-trees. These are to be grafted in the manner already described in our pages. Next to this, the quince stock is to be chosen. The pear is dwarfed upon it. In other words, the two are but imperfectly suited to each other, and the scion does not develop according to its original nature. But this very dwarfing adds something to the good qualities of the fruit, affords trees so small that, at eight feet apart, they make beautiful linings to a walk or border, and, morever, brings the pear to its fruit several years earlier than if it were on its own bottom. But on the other hand, the pear on quince is comparatively short-lived. The white-thorn has been tried as a stock and not without success, but it is hardly to be used except in extremities.