What Fruit Trees to Plant.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 60, 26 July 1884, Page 5

What Fruit Trees to Plant.

KoMATAin the "Settler" says : I have given lists of some of the best kinds of fruit trees to plant and also a few in August following. There are now so very many excellent varieties of all kinds of fruit trees in our nurseries to select from, that it is difficult to say which is the best. I think where there is a choice it is wiser to confine one's selection to those varieties which bear the most abundantly and are hardiest, and that keep longest off the tree, taking care at the same time to provide fruit over as many months as possible. Ido not see much advantage in having a great many varieties, it is better to have fewer kinds and more trees of the one sort ; for instance, if you have a really good apple and another that is still better, both coming ripe together, both you or your customers (if you sell the fruit) will prefer the latter, however good the former may be ; and it would be better to be able to continue the supply of the best, than that it should run out just as its value is beginning to be understood. Looking forward to your trees growing large I would by all means recommend you to give a very large preference to non-blighting varieties as large standards. For wine, jams, and tinning, and carrying purposes the clingstone deaches and plums are the best. For the market give the preference to early and very late varieties of all fruits. Quinces do not generally fetch heavy prices, but they require little care, and have the advantage of keeping long and being very easy to carry to the market, with little cost of packing, standing a great deal of knocking about. Baking pears have nearly the same qualities, although they are not very saleable and their yield is sometimes very heavy, Mr, Me-

cording to the official figures of the Iron and Steel Association of Germany, during Laughlan on the Thames River near Hikutaia has a Catillac pear of which fruit last year weighed in some cases nearly three pounds each, two pounds being less than the average weight. Lemons also are very profitable, as they keep long, and there is always a demand for them if not forced on the market as soft fruit must be. I think also that orchardists do not, as a rule, give sufficient attention to various kinds of nuts; those in particular who have land that is likely to descend to their children would do well to plant out extensively, walnuts and chestnuts in particular. It is astonishing how valuable some of these trees become in the course of many years. There is now (or was thirty years ago) in England a walnut-tree which if it be still alive has been known to exist over 980 years, and the quantity of fruit that tree has borne is something awful. In the south of France these nuts form no inconsiderable portion of the food of the peasants, and very good they are, and the beautiful walnut trees that line the streets of pretty Interlaken in Switzerland yield a valuable addition to the 5 early revenues of the town authorities. I have had chestnut trees in this country which at the age of about six or seven years began to bear sufficient fruit to repay my trouble, and in a few years more the return begins to tell up, so that the length of time required to produce a return need not discourage the planter. Next month I will be able to name a few more varieties, but in the meantime a reference to the May and August, 1883, numbers is all that I have space to suggest.