CHAPTER V.

WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC.

While the hedge proper also serves largely as a protection against wind and storm, it is presumed not to be planted primarily for that purpose. The true windbreak is a very tall hedge, or a close row of evergreens, or grove, or a strip of forest. While I am an enthusiast on beautiful and useful hedges, I believe the subject of supreme importance for American agriculture and horticulture is just now how to protect ourselves and our grounds from violent winds and changes of temperature. Professor Bailey, in his admirable discussion of the subject, suggests that one reason why fruit growing is attended with increasing difficulties is because of the removal of the forests The result of forest destruction has been to make our summers hotter and dryer and our winters more extreme. It is not so much that the weather is colder than formerly, but that the changes are more frequent and sharper.

The forest aids the fruit grower in two ways: first, it prevents the severe sweep of winds breaking trees, and creating sudden atmospheric changes; second, it conserves and balances atmospheric moisture. The sweep of winds when undisturbed bears away the moisture from the soil and also from the trees and their buds. It is well known that fruit

buds will endure two or three degrees severer freezing when the air is moist than when it is dry. It is true that hedges and windbreaks and forests may hinder the free circulation of air over a very adjacent orchard, and they may harbor both insect enemies and fungous diseases. Professor Bailey suggests that we can and ought to do a great deal, in the way of eliminating from our forests, trees that are specially the breeders of our enemies. For instance, the wild cherry, which grows along the edge of our woods, is especially occupied by the tent caterpillar, and as a rule should be cut down. I follow Professor Bailey still farther, in his suggestion that we do not wish or need to protect ourselves from all sorts of winds. If wind passes over a large body of water, it becomes warmer by taking heat from the water as well as moisture. In this case a windbreak would be detrimental to the interests of the horticulturist. "From a general study of the subject it appears that, for interior localities, dense belts of evergreens, backed by forest trees to prevent evergreens from becoming ragged, are advisable, because winds coming off the land are liable to make the plantation colder. In localities influenced by bodies of water it is better to plant just enough to break the force of the wind." To sum up the whole subject: "A windbreak may exert a great influence upon a fruit plantation. The benefits derived from it are, protection from cold. lessening of evaporation, decrease of windfalls, facilitation of labor, enabling trees to grow more erect, encouragement of birds, and beauty of landscape.'

I am so loath to divorce the useful and the beau

tiful that my taste inclines very strongly to those forms of windbreaks that give more or less return of fruit. It is amazing how large an amount of grapes can be grown on a close row of deciduous trees, which become interlaced with the vines. It is true that as the vines climb higher much of the fruit will be out of reach for easy gathering, and that very little of it will be really marketable, but it is never out of reach of the birds. In the orchard we also have at hand an eminently fine tree for constructing fruitful windbreaks-I refer to the Buffum pear. This tree grows almost as a counterpart of the Lombardy poplar, erect, stiff and compact. It should never be cut back at the top, for it has no capacity for lateral growth. Set the trees about eight feet apart, and then let them take their own way. The result will be a wall, as smooth and perfect as a trimmed hedge. In blossom, the Buffum pear is simply superb, and later it will be loaded with golden pears, which while not first class are yet a very good second class. The fruit is one of the best that we have for pickling, and if picked before ripe becomes a very good dessert pear. Let them begin to yellow before picking, and then store or sell. The cropping power is astonishing. After the pears are gone, and in the later season, the leaves become a brilliant crimson. Of all lawn trees there are only two or three equal to the Buffum pear in autumn coloring, and I do not know one other pear that is equal to it. The leaves hang on until late, and a wall of them cannot be surpassed for magnificence. If instead of a windbreak you desire an avenue that shall be part shelter for your drives the Buffum pear still surpasses all trees for

close growth and rich foliage. In other words, here is a fruit that we would not select to any extent for orchard-growing, and yet it is so good that it will be welcomed when it affords us bushels, without any further labor than that of planting a windbreak.

A close row of dwarf apples is another device for combining fruit and shelter. Some of the dwarfs are delightfully compact and beautiful, whether singly or in rows. They are useful, however, only where you will be content with a windbreak ten feet high. The Ben Davis is a good apple for this purpose. Its branches droop, and in autumn bend gracefully down with a load of crimson fruit. The Astrakhan, not dwarfed, makes a splendid windbreak, bearing quite as well as in an open orchard. The Kirkland is extremely fine for close-growing. for dense foliage and for heavy cropping. The main point to be looked after, in planting apple tree shelters, is to select varieties with tough enduring wood. Other varieties, like the Baldwin and the Poun Sweet, will soon give way under the loads of fruit, or in windstorms; and present in the course of two or three years after bearing, a mass of brushwood. Such a windbreak must be trimmed of suckers as carefully as the trees in an orchard.

I have seen nature create some remarkably good windbreaks with wild cherries and wild plums. The latter particularly are good for their fruit as well as their shelter. It is well for us to give nature the cue, by starting along a required line a choice variety of plums like the Lombard, from which suckers will soon fill up all the space allowed. But here again there will be constant need of the saw and pruning

knife, because as new trees appear, some of the old ones are sure of continually dying. I have already suggested the danger from wild cherry trees, that they will become breeders of tent and other caterpillars, yet they are very beautiful in close rows.

A protective wall of crab apple trees is one of the easiest to be made and one of the most useful. These trees, however, should not be set closer than fifteen feet. Let them branch out six or eight feet in each direction, and let the branches start about five or six feet from the ground. After the first crop of apples these branches will droop to the sod. Remember that such a row of trees must have room. It must not be used as a close hedge, for then its beauty as well as its utility will be sacrificed. If you know of anything more beautiful than a Martha or Hyslop crab in full bloom, it must be the same tree in full fruit. A row of these trees standing twenty feet high, and touching the ground with their branches, will delight the dullest eye. The value of the fruit is at the same time considerable for home use, or market. The demand for the best varieties of crab apples is on the increase. Prices range about with the prices of dessert apples in the autumn months.

No one can fail to get excellent hints from the way nature creates her windbreaks wherever she is permitted an opportunity. Watch how rapidly along every line of old fence these appear. The farmer can do no better than to let them grow. Oaks, ashes, elms, chestnuts, will thus stand close, or in groups, while underneath crowd elders, haws and hazels. Wild grapevines climb through and interlace the