Part 24 (1/2)
If you have already paid your annual fee for this year, send us $4.00 more and your name will be placed on the life roll with the balance of $5.00 to be paid one year from how--or send $9.00, and that makes a full payment.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HORTICULTURAL BUILDING (SHOWING NEW GREENHOUSES ATTACHED) AT UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. ANTHONY PARK, MINN.]
While it is not the intention to publish anything in this magazine that is misleading or unreliable, yet it must be remembered that the articles published herein recite the experience and opinions of their writers, and this fact must always be noted in estimating their practical value.
THE MINNESOTA HORTICULTURIST
Vol. 44 APRIL, 1916 No. 4
Dwarf Apple Trees.
DR. O.M. HUESTIS, MINNEAPOLIS.
I have here a sample of McIntosh Red grown on a standard tree--a beautiful apple and well colored. Here I have the same variety grown on one of my dwarf trees, not quite as well colored.
Now, the dwarf tree that bore these apples has been planted two years; this is the second year of its growth in my own ground at Mound, on Lake Minnetonka.
I have sixty dwarf trees, five of which have been in eight years, and they have borne six crops of apples. The last ones I got two years ago, and they were two years old when I got them. I planted five of these dwarf trees at the same time that I planted forty standards. The dwarfs have borne more fruit than the standards up to date. Of course, they have only been in eight years. The standards are Wealthy, d.u.c.h.ess, Northwestern Greening and one or two Hibernal and some crabs; the dwarf stock is the Doucin. It is not the Paradise stock, which is grown in England largely and some in France and Germany. My trees are a little higher than my head, and I keep them pruned in a certain way. One of my older trees the second year had ninety-six apples on it. It was a Yellow Transparent, and they came to maturity very well. Several of my trees are about four feet high. I had from twenty-five to fifty apples on them, and they all ripened nicely. The Red Astrachan and the Gravenstein and one Alexander had a few apples on them, and I notice that they are well loaded with fruit buds for another year, which will be the third year planted.
The care of these trees is probably a little more difficult than that of the standard tree, or, at least, I give them special care. I have attempted to bud into some of these, but in my experience they do not take the bud very well. I can take a bud from one of the dwarfs and put it on a standard, and it will grow all right, but I can't take a bud from a standard and put it on a dwarf as successfully. I judge it is because it isn't as rapid growing as the Hibernal, for instance, would be. I notice the Hibernal is the best to take a bud because it is a rapid growing tree and an excellent one on which to graft.
If I wanted to plant an orchard of forty or fifty acres I would plant standard trees and would put the dwarf between the rows, probably twelve feet apart. Mine are about ten feet apart, some of them a little more, but I have two rows eight feet apart each way, nine in each row, which forms a double hedge. I expect them to grow four feet high. I will prune them just as I wish to make a beautiful double hedge between two cottages.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Residence of Dr. Huestis, at Mound, Lake Minnetonka.]
In pruning those that have been in eight years I have tried to use the renewal system as we use it on grapes sometimes. I take out some of the older branches and fruit spurs that have borne two or three years. They must be thinned out. I counted twenty apples on a branch a foot long. I let them grow until they are large enough to stew and then take some off and use them, when apple sauce is appreciated. I thin them every year and get a nice lot of good fruit each year.
I have noticed for two years that I have about ninety-eight per cent. of perfect apples, not a blotch nor a worm. I spray them all, first the dormant spray and then just as the blossoms are falling, and then one other spraying in two weeks and another spray three weeks later.
Mr. Ludlow: Do you mulch the ground?
Dr. Huestis: Well, I dig up the ground a little in the spring. The roots are very near the surface, not very penetrating, and I cultivate around the roots, but I am careful not to cut them. Every fall I put a good mulch of leaves and hay around them. I have been a little fearful they would winter-kill. I wouldn't lose one of them for ten dollars, and I think it well to mulch them, leaving a little s.p.a.ce at the base.
Mr. Andrews: Are the roots exposed in some cases?
Dr. Huestis: Yes, I noticed on two of the older trees, those that have been in eight years and have borne six crops, you can see the roots on one side, the top is exposed a little, and I think it would be well to put a little dirt on those another year. The stock of these dwarf trees is slow growing with a rapid growing top, and that is what dwarfs them.
I have transplanted one tree three times, which would make four plantings in eight years, and that tree bore almost as much fruit last year as any of them. In another case once transplanted I think the tree is better than the others that were left.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Dwarf Yellow Transparent, bearing 96 apples, third year from planting at Dr. Huestis'.]
As I said before, if I was planting an orchard I would put dwarf trees between, and by the time they had borne three or four crops, and you were expecting a crop of fruit from the standard trees--about seven years from the time you put them in--I would put the dwarf trees as fillers, costing about forty cents apiece, and by the time they are bearing nicely your friends would have seen those, and I believe would want them at the time you want to take them out. I believe I could sell any of mine for three or four dollars apiece. I think that would be one way of disposing of them after you wanted to take them out of the standard orchard on account of room. That is just a thought of mine.
When I got my first ones eight years ago I gave one to a man who lives in North Minneapolis, at 1824 Bryant Avenue North. Any one can see it who lives up in that section. The first year he had twenty-nine apples, and it has borne each year since. The one which I have transplanted and which bore last year is a Bismarck. It is a little better apple, in my mind, than the d.u.c.h.ess. It is a good deal like the d.u.c.h.ess but is a better keeper and has a better flavor than the d.u.c.h.ess.