Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1869 — Care of Orchards. [ARTICLE]

Care of Orchards.

As an anmteur orchavdist, I have noticed an evil which is extremely common in orchards of this locidity, and I presume in others to the manner in which the trunk of the tree divides itself into branches. This division is often at so sharp an angle that the bark in the angle and the dirt lodging there are caught between the two branches as they grow, so that, instead of a solid, woody union in the angle where the branches seem to unite, a crack is formed, holding the bark which has been pinched iq, and deepening with the growth of the tree. Thus, while the lower side of the limb is firmly bound to the tree, by Its fiber passing into and becoming a part of the trank, the upper side is cat off by a cleft filled with dirt and rubbish across which no fibers pass, though it may seem to the careless eye a perfect union. The weight of its lead of fruit, or the violence of storms, is sure '»time to split off such a limb, !

ofleu to the utter ruin of the tree. The remedy is, first and best, allow no division of the young tree with such angles to take place. But if you have old trees m which the evil already exists, pick out from the crotch all the loose bark, and, with a sharp knife, pare the bark where it would be likely to pinch, till you come to the green bark, but by no means reach the inner bark, or separate it from the wood. Even if a cleft has already been formed you can if it is still shallow, clean it out and*pare it smooth. * The angle will then fill up with a woody growth that will bind the branches solidly together. Such branches are safe; they will generally break before they will split apart. Once or twice each year, every tree should be visited, the divisions of all its’ large branches carefully examinened aud everything removed from the angle which can by any possibility become pinched in as tin* branches grow. By this means the ruinous breaking aud spliting of trees, now so common, may be almost wholly prevented.— Cor. Western Jtural.