Dwarf Fruit Trees Part 1

Dwarf Fruit Trees.

by F. A. Waugh.

PREFACE

The commercial interests have so continuously and completely held the horticultural stage in America during the last two decades that it has been impossible for amateur horticulture to get in a word edgewise. Any public speaker or writer has had to talk about several acres at a time or he would not be listened to. He has been obliged to insist that his scheme would pay on a commercial scale before anyone would hear, much less consider, what he had to tell.

But now a change is coming. Different conditions are already upon us. A thousand signs indicate the new era. With hundreds--yes thousands--of men and women now horticulture is an avocation, a pastime. They grow trees largely for the pleasure of it; and their gardens are built amidst surroundings which would make commercial pomology laugh at itself.

And so I undertake to offer the first American fruit book in a quarter century which can boldly declare its independence of the professional element in fruit growing. I am confident that dwarf fruit trees have some commercial possibilities, but they are of far greater importance to the small householder, the owner of the private "estate," the village dweller, the suburbanite and the commuter.

In other words, while I hope that all good people will be interested in dwarf fruit trees and that some of them will share the enthusiasm of which this book is begotten, I do not want anyone to think that I have issued any guaranty, expressed or implied, that dwarf trees will open a paying commercial enterprise. Because the argument that a thing pays has been so long the only recommendation offered for any horticultural scheme, many persons have formed the habit of a.s.suming that every sort of praise stands on this one foundation.

F. A. WAUGH.

_Ma.s.sachusetts Agricultural College, 1906._

I

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

A dwarf fruit tree is simply one which does not reach full size. It is not so large as it might be expected to be. It is smaller than a normal tree of the same variety and age.

There are indeed some trees which are normally dwarf, so to speak. They never reach a considerable size. They are smaller than other better known and related species. For example, the species _Prunus pumila besseyi_ is sometimes called the dwarf sand cherry, simply because it is always notably smaller than related species. The Paradise apple is spoken of as a dwarf because it never attains the stature which other apples attain.

But in the technical sense, as the term is used by nurserymen and pomologists, a dwarf tree is one which is made, by some artificial means, to grow smaller than normal trees of the same variety.

These artificial means used for making dwarf trees are chiefly three: (1) propagation on dwarfing stocks, (2) repressive pruning, and (3) training to some prescribed form.

DWARFING STOCKS

The most common and important means of securing dwarf trees is that of propagating them on dwarfing stocks. These are simply such roots as make a slower and weaker growth than the trees from which cions are taken.

This will be understood better from a concrete example. The quince tree normally grows slower than the pear, and usually reaches about half the size at maturity. Now pear cions will unite readily with quince roots and will grow in good health for many years. But when a pear tree is thus dependent for daily food on a quince root it fares like Oliver Twist. It never gets enough. It is always starved. It makes considerably less annual growth, and never (or at least seldom) reaches the size which it might have reached if it had been growing on a pear root.

This is, somewhat roughly stated, the whole theory of dwarfing fruit trees by grafting them on slow-growing stocks. The tree top is always under-nourished and thus restrained in its ambitious growth of branches, as seen in Fig. 1.

While the tree is made thus smaller by being grafted on a restraining root, it is not affected in its other characteristics. At least theoretically it is not. It still bears the same kind of fruit and foliage. Bartlett pear trees budded on quince roots yield fruit true to name. The pears are still Bartletts, and can not be told from those grown on an ordinary tree. Sometimes the fruit from dwarf trees seems to be better colored or better flavored than that from standard trees; but such differences are very delicate and usually receive slight thought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1--DWARF APPLE TREES IN WESTERN NEW YORK]

Dwarf fruit trees have not been very largely grown in America, but have been much more widely used in Europe. This statement holds good either for commercial plantations or for private fruit gardens. They are coming into more common use in this country because, in both market orchards and amateur gardens, our pomology is coming to be somewhat more like that of Europe. Our conditions are approaching those of the Old World, even though they will always be very different from those of Europe in horticultural matters.

Dwarf fruit trees are particularly valuable in small gardens; and small gardens are becoming constantly more popular among our urban, and especially our suburban, population. This matter is discussed more fully in another chapter. Fruit of finer quality can be grown on dwarf trees, as a general rule, than can usually be grown on standard trees. Every year there are more people in America who are willing to take any necessary pains to secure fruit of extra quality. This remark applies particularly to amateur fruit growers and to owners of private estates who grow fruit for their own tables, but it is no less true of a certain cla.s.s of fruit buyers, especially in the richer cities. Although $3 a barrel is still a high price for ordinary good apples, sales of fancy apples at $3 a dozen fruits are by no means infrequent in the city markets every winter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2--TRAINED CORDON APPLE TREES

From Loebner's "Zwergobstbaume"]

In this respect also we are approaching European conditions. In the markets of the continental capitals in particular fancy fruits are frequently sold at prices which seem almost incredible to an American.

Single apples sometimes bring 50 cents to a dollar, and peaches an equal price. Just recently a story has been going the rounds of the newspapers that the caterer for the Czar's table sometimes pays as high as $15 apiece for peaches for the royal table. Hereupon a solemn American editor remarked that if the whole royal family should live upon nothing but peaches it would still be cheaper than carrying on the j.a.panese war.

Now if there is anywhere within reach a market for apples or peaches at $3 a dozen specimens--and there unquestionably is--then it will pay to grow fancy fruits with special care to meet this demand. This kind of fruit can be grown better upon dwarf trees than upon standards in many cases, if not in most. At least such is the conviction of the present writer. Moreover this has been the experience in the old country.

With such facts in view there seems to be a possible future for dwarf fruit trees, even for commercial purposes. Their present utility in amateur gardens and on wealthy private estates can not be questioned.

These various amateur and commercial adaptations of dwarf trees will have to be more carefully a.n.a.lyzed and discussed in a future chapter, and the subject may therefore be dropped for the present.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3--BISMARCK APPLE, FIRST YEAR PLANTED

22 inches high; bearing 4 fruits]

II

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

It is a good prejudice which expects every man who writes anything to be enthusiastic over his subject. Such enthusiasm doubtless leads a writer many times to over-state his case, and to claim more than the calm judgment of the mult.i.tude will ratify. And on the other hand, readers usually tacitly discount the statements of any man who writes about any matter in which he is plainly interested. The present writer knows that he is also under the ban, and that the reader firmly expects him to claim more for dwarf fruit trees than their merits will fairly warrant.

This expectation the writer hopes to disappoint. It will be enough to set down here the obvious advantages and disadvantages which the horticulturist will meet in handling dwarf fruit trees. These statements are mostly of matters of common experience and they need no coloring to make them serve their present purpose.

We may fairly set down the following good points standing more or less generally to the credit of dwarf fruit trees:

1. _Early bearing._--This is a sufficiently obvious advantage. The Alexander apple will bear the second year after planting when grown as a dwarf, while it requires six to ten years to come into bearing as a standard. This habit of early bearing proves valuable in many ways. It encourages men to plant trees. The disinclination of old men to plant trees rests upon the slenderness of the chance that they will ever gather of the fruit. But a man may plant dwarf trees whenever his expectation of life is two years or more. Such trees would serve octogenarians, consumptives and those sentenced to be hanged for murder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4--PEAR TREE, TRAINED AS AN ESPALIER]

Early bearing--to return to the subject--makes dwarf trees valuable to that large and unfortunately growing cla.s.s of citizens who rent the premises where they live. They do not expect to stay more than five or six years in any one place. In that length of time ordinary trees would not begin to yield any fruit. But with dwarf trees there is excellent probability of seeing something ripen. Then again early bearing is a great advantage when one is testing new or old varieties. It is a great advantage when a commercial orchard is designed and when dwarf trees are used for fillers as explained below.

2. _Small size._--The very smallness of the dwarf trees has many advantages in it. The trees are easier to reach and to care for. They are easier to prune and to spray. This facility in spraying is what has chiefly recommended smaller fruit trees to commercial fruit growers in recent years. Particularly in those places where the San Jose scale is a perennial problem a very large tree becomes an impossibility, and the smaller the trees can be the better it suits.

The small size of dwarf trees permits the planting of larger numbers on a given area. This is specially worth while to the amateur who has a small garden where only three or four standard trees could grow, but where he can comfortably handle forty or fifty dwarfs. Yet it is also worth the consideration of the commercial fruit grower who is trying to earn a profit on expensive land. If he can increase the number of bearing trees on each acre, especially during the early years of establis.h.i.+ng his orchard, it almost certainly means increased income.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5--BUSH APPLE TREE, THREE YEARS PLANTED]

3. _High quality._--It is not perfectly certain that every kind of fruit can be produced in higher quality on dwarf trees than on standards, but such is the general rule. This is notably true of certain pears, as Buerre Giffard and Doyenne du Comice, and it is generally the case with all apples that can be successfully grown on Paradise roots. One can secure size, color, flavor and finish on an Alexander or a Ribston Pippin, for example, which can never be secured on a standard tree. One who has not seen this thing done will hardly understand it; those who have will not need more argument. Such plums as we have fruited on dwarf trees have shown similar improvement in quality, being always distinctly superior to the same varieties grown on standard trees. The significance of these facts will appear at once to any one familiar with the course of the fruit markets in America. There are greater rewards awaiting the fruit grower who can produce fruit of superior quality than the one who succeeds merely in increasing the quant.i.ty of his output.

SPECIAL USES FOR DWARF TREES

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