But man's wants are different. We want a tree that will produce abundant crops of fine fruit, and we ignore everything else to get this, the result being a plant that needs the fostering care of man to save it from extinction by robust wildlings. We have removed the plant from natural conditions and we must take care of it if we wish to preserve it.

Soil exhaustion is the cause of more failures in fruit than all other causes combined. Men realize that annual crops need feeding, but they do not realize that the trees in the orchard need feeding, nor, that they are removing more plant food from the soil than the annual crops. But this is true, nevertheless, for a good crop of appples will remove more mineral matter from the soil twan three crops of wheat. And yet men expect the apple orchard to produce fruit indefinitely, and at the same time grow grain or grass, or answer as a pasture. And when the soil declines to respond and give fruit when the plant food to make it is no longer there, men say the climate has changed, and that fruit. cannot be grown as once it could.

It is, nevertheless, true that orcharding requires more constant attention and more hard work than it formerly did. Not only is the soil exhausted of the food the trees need, but the enemies of the tree and fruit have undoubtedly increased with the increase of cultivation and commerce, by which the injurious insects of other lands are introduced here. Hence the man who expects to succeed in orcharding to-day must be a student and a worker, ever on the alert to discover new enemies and to prevent the attacks of the old ones, too. The work that has been done and is being done at the Experiment Stations in this and other States, for the purpose of demonstrating the best food materials for fruit trees, and the best means for checking the ravages of insects and fungus diseases, is constantly pntting into the hands of growers the means for protecting their orchards. It has, therefore, come to the point that the man who would succeed in growing fruit must be a student and a workman. He should study the habits of insects so as to be able to distinguish friends from foes. He should get acquainted with the low plant organisms that make our rusts and blights, and the best means for stacking them.

ANALYSES OF THE APPLE TREE AND ITS PRODUCTS.

Apple leaves collected in May contain water, 72.36 per cent.; ash, 2.33 per cent.; nitrogen, 0.74 per cent.; phosphoric acid, .25 per cent., and potash, .25 per cent.

Collected in September, they contain water, 60.71 per cent.; ash, 3.46 per cent.; nitrogen, .89 per cent.; phosphoric acid, .19 per cent., and potash, .39 per cent.; showing the tendency of the phosphoric acid to return to the soil at the ripening period.

Apple fruit contains water, 85.30 per cent.; ash, .39 per cent.; nitrogen, .13 per cent.; phosphoric acid, .o1 per cent., and potash, .19 per cent.

The wood of the whole tree, roots and branches, averages water, 60.83 per cent.; ash, 1.50 per cent.; nitrogen, .35 per cent.; phosphoric acid, .05 per cent., and potash, .17 per cent.

A mature apple tree, then, weighing but a ton would contain, in its wood alone, 7 pounds of nitrogen, I pound of phosphoric acid and 3.4 pounds of potash. Estimating the crop at ten bushels for such a tree, and there will be taken from the soil in the fruit alone, about .8 of a pound of nitrogen, .2 of a pound of phosphoric acid and one 1.14 pounds potash.

Estimating 40 such trees per acre, there would be removed from the soil in such a crop per acre, 32 pounds of nitrogen, 8 pounds of phosphoric acid and 45.6 pounds of potash.

A crop of wheat of 20 bushels per acre removes from the soil in grain and straw about 29 pounds of nitrogen, 9 pounds of phosphoric acid and 5 pounds of potash.

It will be seen; then, that the draft on the soil, especially in potash, is far heavier from a crop of apples than a crop of wheat. Farmers undestand easily the reason for applying fertilizers for the wheat crop, but imagine that the orchard need no manuring, and when the trees fail we are told that "we cannot grow fruit here as we formerly did." The real reason is soil exhaustion. It has taken a great deal of plant food to build up the big tree, and supply its annual crop of leaves and fruit, and in most cases there has been a crop taken annually from the land besides. And when we consider that a ton is a small estimate for the weight of a full grown apple tree and roots, the need for annually keeping up the fertility of the soil becomes more apparent.

SEEDLINGS VS. GRAFTED FRUIT TREES.

There are many people who still adhere to the notion that the best way to grow a fruit tree is from the seed. Our Western mountain country is so full of seedling apples that the great difficulty in marketing apples from there at present is that there are not enough of apples of one sort known in the markets to make shipments of any size, and this has led to the practice common there of shipping mixed lots of all sorts. The great need in the apple-growing section of this State is for orchards of standard varieties enough to make them an item in the market. The mountain country is full of inferior sorts like the Red Limbertwig, which will sell only when there are no good apples to be had. If our people ever expect to reap the advantages that their soil and climate give them for the production of apples, they must stop trying to get people to buy Limbertwigs, Buffs and other inferior

and worthless apples, but must grow the good ones that they can grow as easily as these poor sorts.

WHERE APPLES WILL GROW.

While the mountain country west of the Blue Ridge is pre-eminently the apple-growing section of the State, it does not by any means follow that apples cannot be grown successfully in other sections. The main reason for lack of success in the midland section of the Piedmont region is doubtless soil exhaustion and careless cultivation, or rather utter neglect of cultivation. Some of our best apples are natives of the Eastern part of the State, and there is but a limited part of the whole State where apples cannot be grown successfully if due attention is given to the orchard.

WHAT KIND OF TREES TO PLANT.

We have said that one of the greatest drawbacks to the success of apples in the mountain country is the great number of seedling apples that have been grown. If we are to make a reputation in the market for our apples we must grow the sorts that the markets demand, and which bring the best prices. This cannot be done by growing seedling trees. We must use grafted trees to reproduce the variety we want. Much could be done by grafting over with standard varieties all the trees of inferior sorts that now fill the orchards. We will give elsewhere a list of the sorts approved by the best growers in the State, and especially those that are proving the most profitable varieties to grow.

WHAT AGE TO PLANT TREES.

If we were going to take personal care of the trees we would always plant one-year-old trees of all kinds of fruits. But growers generally want a big tree, which is usually a big mistake, for the smaller young tree is usually far better and more certain to live and grow well. Then, too, the one-year-old apple tree is simply a single stem and is more easily made to form a good head than one that has been cut back and branched in the crowded nursery rows. Apple trees, and in fact all fruit trees should be headed low in this climate, and it is more easy to form the head low on a yearling tree than on one that has been allowed to branch too high in the nursery simply because the majority of buyers want them in that shape. Buy one-year trees and head them not over two feet from the ground. The trees can be bought more cheaply at that age, are easier to transplant and are less costly to transport. Of course if one is going to leave the care of the trees to ignorant labor, and is going to have them run plows through the orchard, he had better have larger trees, that they can be seen better than the little year

lings. But whatever size trees you buy, head them low. The only advantge a high-headed tree has is that a man can get under it with a mule, which is, after all, no advantge at all, for there is no use of the mule being there after the tree has gotten to a bearing size, as all the feeding roots are out about the spread of the branches and there is little need for any cultivation near the trunk. The tall tree gives the wind greater leverage and is more easily blown down. It is more difficult to gather the fruit from and is more liable to injury from sun-scald, than the low-headed one. fact this last is one of the chief advantages of the low-headed tree, for there is probably more damage done to apple trees by sunscald than by anything else in this climate. There is no difficulty in making the head as low as we choose if the tree is a yearling, but with older trees it is sometimes hard to get a head at the proper place after the nurseryman has started one higher up.

PREPARATION OF THE LAND FOR THE ORCHARD.

In

The preparation of the land before planting an apple orchard is of the greatest importance, for any lack of preparation before planting can hardly be remedied after the trees are set. If one does not intend to prepare the land well, manure well and culti vate well, he had better let the planting of an orchard alone, for there can be no profit in apple trees treated as the great majority of them are in this State. The chief point in the preparation of the land is deep plowing of the soil. This is especially needed on our red-clay uplands, where trees set in shallow plowing are so apt to be stunted by droughts. The land for the orchard should be prepared early in the fall, by plowing as deeply as a pair of horses can pull a plow and behind this team another team in same furrow, with a subsoil plow to break the clay still deeper, till the whole land is broken to a depth of 15 inches. This deep preparation will be the best investment the planter can make in setting the orchard.

HOW FAR APART TO PLANT TREES.

If there was any probability that the owner would have the nerve to take out half the trees when they get too thick, we would advocate the first planting in this climate to be at twenty feet apart each way, so as to get the benefit of the shade as soon as possible. But for the mature trees this would be just twice as close each way as they should be. Hence it is better, as a rule, to plant at once as we want them to stand-That is for most apples, 40 feet apart each way. This will give but 27 trees to the acre. If the trees are planted alternately in adjoining rows, 35 feet will give abundant room. In most of our hilly land there will be an advantage in setting the trees just as we plant other crops-on the

level of the hill, following the contour lines around the elevation. Planted in this way, the terraces could be made to correspond with the tree rows and the trees be planted on the terrace banks. There would be the additional advantage, in this, that the apple tree, being fond of moisture, would have the best chance there, as the terrace banks would hold back the water and the roots of the trees would have the advantage of the increased moisture soaking into the land above them. Planted in this way 35 feet between the trees and terraces would be an abundance of room.

WHEN TO PLANT.

In this climate all hardy trees of a deciduous character should be planted in fall as soon as possible after the fall of the leaf. Our soil never freezes deeply in winter, and the trees will be renewing their feeding roots during the winter, and will thus be ready to grow off rapidly in the spring.

HOW TO PLANT A TREE.

When trees are dug from the nursery, no matter how carefully the digging is done, the roots are more or less mutilated. The small fibrous roots, on which the root hairs are, and through which the tree draws its food from the soil, are all dried up inevitably, and the newiy-planted tree must make new fibres before it can draw food from the soil. If all the roots are planted the process of making root fibres will be much slower than if the roots are properly pruned. Therefore in preparing the tree for planting, the small dried fibres should all be cut away, and all the roots pruned back to a few inches in length with a sharp knife, making a clean sloping cut on the under side. From this cut surface the new fibres will push readily in the moist soil. If the land has been properly plowed and subsoiled there is no need for the making of extra large and deep holes. But in setting the tree the earth should be, if possible, rather on the dry side than wet, for it is hard to set a tree properly in wet soil. The chief point to observe in planting is to get the earth closely packed about the roots. This can best be done by using a small sized rammer and then ram the earth as it is being put in, as tight as though setting a fence post. Never pour water into a hole in planting a tree, as the effect of this is to bake the soil and cause. cracks to form, that let the air into the roots and so defeat the very object of putting the water there. Never either put any decomposing manure in contact with the roots, as this too, does more harm than good, by causing the soil to dry and to encourage fungus growths. Good surface soil is all that is needed about the roots, and any manure that is to be used, should be put on top the soil as a mulch. Used in this way the manure is very important in preserving moisture and feeding the tree.