Читать книгу Dwarf Fruit Trees - Frank Albert Waugh - Страница 4

These various items of advantage recommend dwarf fruit trees for several specific purposes, some of which are worth pointing out in detail.

1. For suburban places.—A large and increasing percentage of our population now lives the suburban life—in that zone where city and country meet. They have small tracts of land, which, however, they too often lease instead of owning. On these they do more or less gardening,—usually more, in proportion to the size of their holdings. For them dwarf fruit trees are a precious boon. It is possible to plant three hundred to five hundred dwarf fruit trees on a quarter of an acre, where less than a dozen standard trees would flourish. This gives the opportunity to experiment with all sorts and varieties of fruits, a privilege very dear to the heart of the commuter. The dwarf fruit trees also work more readily into a scheme of more or less ornamental gardening, where fruits are combined with vegetables and flowers. Especially if some sort of formal gardening is attempted, the cordons, espaliers and pyramids exactly suit the demands. Then the fact, already mentioned, that the dwarf trees come into bearing much sooner, is a consideration of the highest value to the suburban gardener. He fully expects to move from one home to another at least once in ten years, if not once in five. With the best of intentions and the most favorable of opportunities he can hardly expect to settle down anywhere for life. The suburbs themselves change too rapidly for that; and the place which today is away off in the country may be all covered with factories five years from now. It is terribly discouraging, under such circumstances, to plant a tree knowing that ten years must pass before any considerable fruitage can be expected from it. It is altogether another feeling with which one plants a tree which promises fruit within two or three years.

So that, whatever the drawbacks to the planting of dwarfs, they are the salvation of the suburban garden. For such circumstances they can be freely recommended, without exception or reservation.

2. For orchard fillers.—As commercial orcharding becomes more refined, under the stress of modern competition, and as good orchard land increases in value, up to one hundred, two hundred, or even three hundred dollars an acre, new methods must be adopted with a view to increasing the returns. This opportunity looms especially large for the first few years after the establishment of the commercial orchard, more particularly the apple orchard. When standard trees are planted thirty-five to the acre, which is now the usual practice, the land is not more than one-fourth occupied for the first five years, and not more than half occupied for the first ten years. Indeed it is full twenty years from the time of planting before the thirty-five apple trees will use the whole acre. And since a good farmer can not afford to let expensive land lie idle he has before him a very pretty problem to determine how the space between the standard trees shall be utilized during the early years of the orchard's growth.

Several different methods are in vogue for the solution of this problem; but probably the best one is that system which supplies fillers or temporary trees between the standard or permanent ones. In an orchard of standard apple trees these fillers may very properly be dwarf apple trees; or between standard pears dwarf pears may be planted. If there are thirty-five standard apple trees to an acre, and if a dwarf tree is placed half way between each two standards in every direction, including the diagonal direction, this will make one hundred and five dwarf trees, or one hundred and forty trees in all, instead of the thirty-five trees with which the acre of apple orchard land is more commonly furnished. The dwarf apple trees will be bearing good crops at the end of five years at most; and they can be kept on the land for five years longer at the least, before they will begin to crowd the permanent standards. During these five years, if the orchard has a paying management at all, they will easily pay all the expenses of the enterprise, and should leave a substantial balance of profit.

As this system of filling, or interplanting, commercial orchards is becoming more and more common, the suitability of dwarf trees, for this purpose, becomes more generally evident.

3. For school gardens.—Thus far school gardens in America have been mostly temporary and experimental affairs. But we are already satisfied that they have come to stay, and that gardening in some form will be a permanent feature of the curriculum in many of our best schools. As soon as a school garden becomes a permanent institution, with ground of its own to be held in use year after year, the dependence on annual crops will give way to the use of various perennial plants, shrubs and trees.

And among these dwarf fruit trees will naturally be one of the first introductions. Their small size adapts them to the school premises, their habit of early bearing again serves to recommend them most strikingly, and the special opportunity which they offer to pupils to observe details of pruning and other items of tree management, make them almost a first necessity in the permanent school garden.

4. For covering walls and fences.—There are many places about every farm, suburban establishment, or even about many city homes, where back walls and fences could be put out of sight very agreeably by almost any sort of foliage. Various ornamental climbers and creepers are in vogue for this service; but a certain number of such unattractive walls and fences could be treated quite as acceptably, from the esthetic point of view, with trained fruit trees, and the result would be more satisfactory in some other ways. Apples or pears trained as cordons or espaliers, or peaches, nectarines, or cherries in fan forms, will thrive on almost any brick or wooden wall, except those with a northern front. It is necessary only to supply a proper soil, to plant sound trees of proper sorts, and to give them the prescribed care. The result is not only a thing of beauty but one of practical utility as well.

There are many places where the owner of a city or suburban lot can secure the fun and the substantial benefits belonging to the fruit grower on land that would be otherwise wasted, if he will only build a woven wire fence on the property line between him and his not-too-agreeable neighbor, using this fence as a support for a row of cordon plums, pears or apples. If he has time and inclination to do a little more work with the trees he can better plant U-form peaches, nectarines or apricots, or he can grow plums in U-form, or he can have fan-form cherry trees, or apples or pears in Verrier-palmettes. One of the most interesting and productive lots in the author's dwarf fruit garden is a row of plum trees on such a woven wire trellis. The trees in this row stand two feet apart, and form a perfect screen. (Fig. 6.) The majority of the trees which were necessarily taken for planting this row were not propagated on suitable stocks, and many varieties were introduced for experimental purposes which were obviously unadapted to this mode of training, but nevertheless the net result has been highly satisfactory.

FIG. 6—PLUMS AS UPRIGHT CORDONS, SET TWO FEET APART

In a very similar manner apple, pear or plum trees may be trained so as to form an arched arbor way. In this kind of make-up they present a most agreeable novelty. An example of this kind of training is shown in the illustration, page 5. For this purpose cordon trees are usually best; though peach or apricot trees in U-form or double U-form will answer very well. Even apple trees or pears formed as palmettes-Verrier can be carried up over an arched trellis.

Mr. Geo. Bunyard in "The Fruit Garden" tells of carrying apple trees up over the slate roof of an outbuilding, with marked success. The fruit-bearing portion of the trees, lying there on the slate roof beautifully exposed to the sun above, and assisted by the heat absorbed and radiated by the slate, yielded large crops of apples of very superior quality.