Patrick's Day, that the sun's rays may warm the earth as early
as possible. Moderate pruning, nipping back of exuberant branches, and
two sprayings of the foliage with Bordeaux mixture, to keep fungus
enemies in check, comprise all the care required by the growing tree.
This treatment will condense the ordinary growth of five years into
three, and the tree will be all the better for the forcing.
As soon as fruit spurs and buds begin to show themselves, the treatment
should be modified, but not remitted. Less nitrogen and more phosphoric
acid and potash are to be used, and the mulch should _not_ be removed
in the early spring. The objects now are, to stimulate the fruit buds
and to retard activity in the roots until the danger from late frosts is
past. As a result of this kind of treatment, many varieties of apple
trees will give moderate crops when the roots are seven, and the trunks
are six years old. Fruit buds showed in abundance on many of my trees in
the fall of 1897, especially on the Duchess and the Yellow Transparent,
and I looked for a small apple harvest that year.
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