ALTERNATE-BEARING FRUIT TREES

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22197, 14 September 1937, Page 13

ALTERNATE-BEARING FRUIT TREES

TO TUX EDITOB Ot THB PBESS. Sir.—May I encroach on your space to advise the amateur fruitgrowers how to prevent their fruit trees from being alternate bearers? Ever since the big frost thousands Df fruit trees, especially apple trees, have had no crops. I have had a lot of trouble myself, and I find there is only one way to prevent this loss. I find that if one starts in as the flowers begin to open, and cuts a good portion of flowers off, there will be flowers and fruit the following season. If one cannot cut off all that is necessary then cut the young fruits off. Of course, care must be taken not to injure the buds. If this is done, the trees will soon be regular bearers. During my time in Termoleton J have carried out many experiments with potato growing and fertilisers. The last season I bought from a Christchureh seedsman- 281b of ftuar* anteed Jersey Benne potato seed. The seed was good. I scattered over the sets a mixture of superphosphate (two parts) and one part of muriate of potash, and one part of nitrate of soda, equal to one and one-half ounce of the mixture to a potato set When the potatoes were taken up they averaged more than 3£lb a root, or equal to 21 tons an acre, and there was a very small quantity of seed size or

small ones that were not worth bothering to save. I have just planted another 28lt> with exactly the same quantity of the same class of fertiliser. We have been eating those potatoes since about the middle of last December, and we still have plenty to last well into October, or 10 months. There have been three adults in the family most of the time, and four adults for more than two months. I must say I am not a lover or*the potato unless it is roasted or baked, so I count myself only half an adult. Still, one can see by this that if people work their soil well and deeply, and use a mixture of fertilisers such as the above, it takes only a very small area to keep one ordinary family; and the potato is always a good standby.— Yours, etc., GEO RGE LEE. Templeton, September 13, 1937.