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Besides providing shade and beauty, some trees will reward diligence with table delicacies.
For new home owners, some of their happiest dreams and saddest disillusionments have to do with food trees. On the land they have bought will stand some specimens which, as a rule, are alleged to bear bounteously. Or in the warm glow that comes with planning and planting their first home grounds, the newcomers will set out young stock, usually fruit trees, and sit back with every expectation of luscious harvests to come. When blossoms appear, hope soars. When fruits fail to follow, or they come off scabby and rotted, Nature's broken promise seems rank betrayal. The purposes of this chapter are to assure the inexperienced: 1) that the growing of palatable fruits of any kind, on trees young or old, is a chancy business; 2) that it is, however, quite possible to weight the chances in your favor, provided that you are prepared to cultivate, prune, spray, and otherwise pamper your trees with unremitting diligence. Since trees already grown present the new owners' most immediate problem, these will be discussed first. Exceptional are fruit trees which, when inhabited land changes hands, have been properly cared for over the past year or two. In most cases their pruning will have been neglected, their spraying and feeding omitted entirely. |
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