Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1858 — Selectig Fruit Trees. [ARTICLE]

Selectig Fruit Trees.

Few farmers know what really constitutes a good nursery tree; and yet it is the most valuable Information they tan possess, and to a great extent, the key to future success; for if you expect to have a good orchard, you must have healthy, well formed trees of suitable sorts for your particular soil and climate. Most planters are over anxious to obtain large trees, which are very seldom profitable, never in fact, except when they are to be moved but a short distance from the nursery. Apple trees, from three to five years old, are the cheapest, easiest to plant and most certain to live and give satisfaction. If you go to the nursery yourself, select stocky (i. e., lafge just above ground) -trees, with well balanced>heads, not too high up, especially if you intend to plant them on open prairie. In ordering or selecting cherry, plum or dwarf pear trees, take those that are not over tw,o years old, in fact, one year old, if well grown, are better still. Such trees you can usually get at the nurseries at one-third to one-half less than the sized trees that are generally ordered. Nurserymen like to sell large trees at large prices, but an honest one will tell-you that this is correct advice, and will perhaps save you, if you are about ordering trees, three or four times the cost of this paper.—Emery's Journal of Agriculture.