Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1875 — Cultivating and Trimming Apple Trees. [ARTICLE]

Cultivating and Trimming Apple Trees.

For two or three years we have been trying some experiments on cultivating and manuring apple trees at different distances from the trunk. Only a general brief statement can be given here. Trees which stood in grass and had small circles about them, kept clean and well cultivated, did not seem to be benefited, even when the space about the tree was tilled eight or ten feet each way (with trees fifteen years old). The trees appeared with yellow leaves and made slow growth, the same as those in grass with no culture. Other trees which stood in a patch of grass, each tree in the center of a sixteen-foot grass plot, and cultivated well beyond the grass every way did apparently as well as those with clean culture everywhere about them. (Piling manure close about a large tree is like trying to feed a horse by tying hay to his sides instead of before his mouth.) It is too soon to draw conclusions, but it so far seems to be unnecessary to cultivate closely to trees to make them grow well. I know from observation that most of the best working roots of an old apple-tree are out under the ends of the longest limbs and beyond them. The manuring at different distances about the trees has not shown much effect yet. The trees are moderately trimmed every spring, and young shoots rubbed off as they appear on the large limbs during summer. No limbs are removed which are more than one inch in diameter, unless they previously. Two years ago the cold winter injured severely some of the tender varieties, as Sweet Bough, Jersey Sweet and Baldwin. Some of these were heavily cut back, some were let alone, and others moderately trimmed. The results are decidedly against heavily cutting back. Other experiments with striking and positive results have been tried. Many people all over the country are trying the same, and have been for many years, all with the same results. They are as follows: Young trees are set in thick sod with only a little space dug about them—or they are set in land which is often soaked with water for weeks togetherThey will never amount to anything. It is a labor thrown away. It needs no more proof .—Prof. W. J. Beal, Michigan Agricultural College.