SHALL WE GRAFT OVER OLD ORCHARDS.
BY H. IVES, BATAVIA, N. Y.
After considerable experience in grafting old orchards on different farms, I have come to the decided conviction that it is better to plant out young, grafted trees of the sorts desired, than to graft over an orchard of old trees. I wished to change an orchard of Northern Spy, which had just begun to bear, into Baldwins; and thinking that the grafting of these thrifty young trees could be done to as good advantage as it ever could in any case, I put in from four to six grafts into each tree, which cost me about the same as new trees. Now I am not at all pleased with my work. The symmetry and beauty of the tree-top is destroyed, and after the best has been done that can be done to develop well-balanced tops from these grafts, they will have the appearance of having been bungled. In the case of old trees it is worse yet; it is more expensive, because more grafts must be set, more trimming done, and the work performed at great disadvantage. It is not, in my opinion, profitable to make such an orchard as satisfactory in appearance or as profitable in the end, as an orchard newly planted with young trees. The old trees will pay for the new trees if dug up by the roots in early Spring and cut up into stove-wood. I had a large orchard of old apple trees which I had dug up for twelve and a half cents each, and produced nearly an average of a cord of wood to a tree. The wood was worth enough, and more than enough, to pay for my new orchard of young trees, and when grown they will be far better than I could possibly have made the old trees by grafting them over.
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