Читать книгу The Canadian Settler's Guide - Catharine Parr Traill - Страница 30

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The planting of an orchard, which is a matter of great importance to the future comfort of the settler's family, is often delayed year after year, and that is done last, which should have been attended to at the outset.

Not only are apples valuable as a most palatable and convenient article of diet, but also as one of the most wholesome. In a climate where great heat prevails during the summer months, and even later in the fall, the cooling acid of fruit becomes essentially necessary for the preservation of health.

During the first years of the emigrant's life, this want is painfully felt by those who settle down in the backwoods; and a supply should be provided for as early as possible, by planting trees in the first or second year of the settlement.

I cannot too forcibly impress upon the emigrant the advantage he will derive from thus securing to his household, the comforts, I might almost say the blessing, of an orchard.

I would therefore advise him to fence in securely the first acre, or even half acre, of cleared ground about his house, and plant it with young apple-trees. In all the towns now he will find nurseries, where the choicest and best sorts of apples, pears, cherries, and plums, can be bought.

For good root-grafted apples of good character, which will begin to fruit in three years from the planting, the usual price is 1s. 3d. (a quarter dollar.) Pears, plums, and budded cherries, of good sorts, are dearer, say 2s. 6d. the tree. Ungrafted apple-trees, or seedlings of three years growth cost 7½d. (or a York shilling). These last will bear good kitchen fruit, and by chance, if well cared for, a very fine table-apple may be found among them; but those who can afford to lay out a few dollars in securing apples of the first quality, will be wise to do so. But there may be some who are unable to make even this small outlay, and can hardly venture to purchase the ungrafted trees. Let such sow every apple-pip they can obtain, on a bed, set apart in the garden enclosure for that purpose. The fall is the best time to put the pips into the ground; they will come up in the following Spring: but if you sow them in Spring they rarely come up till the following season, while those sown in the Fall come up in the ensuing Spring.

When these nurslings are well up in six or eight leaves, weed them carefully by hand, or with an old knife. The pips should be sown in drills, a foot apart; the seeds six or eight inches apart; but as ground is no object, and the young trees will be twice as strong and straight with room allowed to grow in, I would rather weed them out so that each sapling stood eighteen inches apart each way; you may plant out those you remove, and they will be none the worse for the resetting.

By the third year these young trees may be grafted, or else they may be removed to the situation in the garden or orchard they are meant to occupy; and after this removal good well-formed branches may be encouraged, but spurs and sprouts are better kept from filling up the middle of the tree. Seedlings thus managed, and the roots kept well worked about at the surface with the hoe, will stand a fair chance of becoming a valuable orchard. You will be surprised at the rapid advance of these trees in a few years time. A scattering of wood-ashes on the ground, or a little manure, well worked in with the hoe in the Fall, will do great things for your plantation. Many persons grow young nurseries for the sake of grafting on the young vigorous-stocks. In Canada root grafting is very much practiced.

My female readers will say, these directions are all very well, but this is men's work; we women have nothing to do with nurseries, except in the house; but let me now say a few words on this head.

In Canada where the heavy labour of felling trees and cultivating the ground falls to the lot of the men, who have for some years enough to do to clear ground to support the family and raise means towards paying instalments on the land, little leisure is left for the garden and orchard: the consequence is that these most necessary appendages to a farm-house are either totally neglected or left to the management of women and children. That there is a miserable want of foresight in this, there can be no doubt, for the garden when well cultivated produces as large an amount of valuable crop as any part of the farm.—In any of the towns in the Fall or in Winter, a head of good cabbage will fetch 3d. or 4d., onions a dollar a bushel, carrots from 3s. to 4s. a bushel, and other vegetables in like manner; and as food for the household consumption, they cannot be too highly valued, even for the sake of preserving the health. Nevertheless if the men will not devote a portion of time to the cultivation of the garden, and orchard, the women must, or else forego all the comfort that they would otherwise enjoy.

After all, when the enclosure is made, and the ground levelled and laid out in walks, and plots, the sowing of the seeds, and keeping the crops weeded and hoed, is not so very heavy a task: with the aid of the children and occasional help of one of the elder boys, a good piece of garden may be cultivated. The tending of a nursery of young trees from the first sowing of the seeds in the ground, is rather a pleasure than a labour; and one which I have taken a delight in from my earliest years.

When I was a child of eight years old, I assisted one of my sisters two years older than myself, under my father's direction, in planting a nursery of walnuts. Those trees now form a fine avenue, and have borne fruit for many years.

Little children can be made to sow the stones of plums, cherries, and apple-pips, in the nursery; these in time will increase and bear fruit in due season: they will all bear fruit without grafting or budding, and they are growing while you are sleeping. In a few years they will be a source of comfort and luxury to your family, and you will not then lament the care that you bestowed upon them.

In the early years of our infant settlement on the banks of the Otonabee river, above the town of Peterboro', all the ladies worked in their gardens, raised their own vegetables, and flowers, and reared the fruit trees which in after years almost overshadowed their dwellings. They felt this work as no disgrace to them, but took pride and pleasure in the success of their labours.

My own garden was full of stumps, and stones, roots and wild bushes, and it cost some trouble to reduce it to smooth working order. I got some help to overcome the first difficulties. The stones, some of them of large dimensions, were removed with a handspike, and built up into a heap. Around the stumps, turf and rubbish of all kinds were heaped, and finally covered with a depth of fine black mould, on which gourds, cucumbers, or melons, were planted, the grass roots and weeds nourishing them as well as a regular hot-bed would have done: by this simple contrivance we got rid of much rubbish, which by degrees was converted into the best of manure, and hid many an unsightly object; the vines of the cucumbers &c. running down the steep sloping sides of the mound, and also covering the stumps with their leaves and fruit.

As I disliked the rough unsightly look of the rail fences, I got an old English settler to enclose my garden (which swept in a bold curved line from each corner of the house) with a wattled fence: this looked very picturesque but did not last more than three years good. I then collected wild gooseberry bushes, currants, bush honey suckles, hawthorns, wild cherry and plum trees, with all sorts of young bushes, and planted them within side my fence, to make a living fence, when the other should have decayed; and had I remained long enough to complete my plans, I should have had a nice hedge. If we could have procured the proper sort of wands, fit for the purpose, I have no doubt my fence would have proved as lasting as it was pretty to look at. It was the admiration of all my neighbours, and many came to look at "Mrs. Traill's fence."

Next to a picket fence made of split cedars, with cedar posts, a log fence is the best in situations where sawn lumber is not easily procured, but the logs should be secured from rolling by stakes and riders. These fences are only suitable to bush settlements, but as my book is intended for emigrants of all sorts, and conditions, and especially for the working hands, I have dwelt more minutely on such things as may suit their particular circumstances, though I trust it may also contain matter of valuable instruction to all classes.

I must now return to the subject from which I first started, Apple-Orchards and Apples.

I again repeat my advice to buy grafted trees if you can afford to do so. There are agents who travel the country, and penetrate even to the verge of the forest, to collect orders for trees, from different nursery-gardens in the United States, and also from the large towns in Canada. I recommend you to deal with the latter, for this reason; your trees are likely to reach your hands sooner after being taken out of the ground: give your strict orders to have the trees well rooted, and the roots matted; and deal with men of good character, who are well known, and have an established reputation. I will give you a list of the most approved and valuable Apples, at the end of this article.

In planting your trees do not be afraid to make the hole wide enough; it is better to dig the soil well, and let every part be thoroughly worked till it be fine and mellow: this is better than putting manure to the roots, which gardeners do not recommend. With a sharp knife cut the bruised roots, and if the top be large, and the roots small, reduce the branches: if the roots be large and spreading, little pruning is requisite: the young trees that have thriven best have been uncut when planted.

The careful planter will make holes deep, that a good bed of friable, sandy loam may be spread at the bottom to set the trees on. It makes a great difference on what soil the roots are bedded.

Let the tree be held up by one person, while another carefully arranges the roots, so that they lie in a natural way in contact with the soil; then lightly strew in the earth, with the hands, and fill up the hole with good soil, pressing the earth down: when planted, a quantity of half-decayed litter should be placed round the tree, as far as the roots extend: this is called by the gardeners mulching, and serves to keep the ground moist and mellow. If you think it needful to support the tree from the action of the wind, tie it to a stake, but place a bit of old cloth between the stake and the young tree, to keep the bark from being rubbed. "In most cases," says a skilful American horticulturist, "it is better to thin out, than to shorten the branches of the newly taken-up trees; leaves are necessary to the formation of roots, and if you deprive the young tree of all its boughs, you stop its resources for root-growth."

There are two seasons for orchard planting; in the Fall, and the Spring. Now I am myself rather in favour of the Fall planting, if it be not put off too late.[12] Many persons plant late, and lose their trees. October is the usual time, and I think it should be done as early in the month as possible. My own idea is that just at the season when the leaf begins to turn yellow, is the safest time for transplanting. If it be put off till the frosts harden the ground, injury to the tender nurslings must follow. In Spring the ground is often too wet, and cold, and the trees get too forward to be removed safely.—April is the Spring month for transplanting, and October in the Fall.

I will now, as well as I can, give you some simple directions about grafting, which is an art often practised by the female hand, as well as that of the professed gardener.

Cut the stock or branch which you design to graft upon, smooth and even, with a sharp knife, or if too large for the knife, with a small fine-toothed pruning saw; with your knife make a cleft of about an inch deep through the crown of the stock, dividing it clean through the bark on either side, into which cleft insert the handle of a budding-knife, which is smooth, and wedge-shaped; or if you are without this useful instrument, have ready a narrow wedge of wood, which will answer all the purposes; this is to keep the cleft open, while you insert the scions or grafts. Select your grafts from any good sorts, from healthy trees, the new, or youngest, growth of wood being chosen. Most grafters cut the scions some days or even weeks before. With a sharp knife pare away the wood on each side, taking care to leave a ridge of bark on your scion, as on this simple circumstance depends the life of the graft. The graft should be about a finger's length, with three distinct buds, one from the base of which you begin to shape the lower part or wedge, which is to be introduced into the cleft. Two grafts, one on each side of the stock, are generally inserted, unless it be in seedling apples, when one will be sufficient. I have seen as many as four scions on the large limbs, but one or two good grafts are better than more.

With your grafting wax at hand, (for clay does not answer in this country as in England,) insert your scions at the edge of the cleft, so that the strip of bark left on it, fills up the opening like a slender gore let into the stock, taking care to bring the edges of the bark of the cleft and the bark of the graft close together, and even, so that neither one shall project beyond the other. Proceed in like manner to your other graft, and then remove the wedge from the centre of the stock; the crack will close, and hold your scions tight: then apply the wax to the sides, covering every part of the seam and a little below, where you see the cracking of the bark; also round the part where the lowest bud rests on the stock: do this effectually, and spread the wax over the crack on the crown of the stock, bringing a little of it all round the edge of the bark, to keep it from drying up. Some wind a strip of cloth, or thread, round, to secure the graft from being moved by any accident: others leave it to chance. You can do so if you like, only there is an old proverb in favor of the binding:

"Safe bind, safe find."

I have only described one method of grafting, but there are many equally simple and safe, which any one conversant with the practice of grafting, will describe, or what is still better, cut a branch, and a scion, and show you the process. I learned to graft from a Canadian lady in her own parlour. I will now give you the receipt for preparing the grafting wax.

[12] Fall planting is now getting more into favour than it was, and earlier planting, say the last week in September.