their fruit very early. The Red Astrachan is on the whole the most
satisfactory, but there are many places which are altogether too dry and
hot for any kind of apple. Whether cherries would succeed or not you can
only tell by trying. Possibly the trees would not live through the
summer if your soil becomes very dry. The most hardy cherries are the
sour or pie cherries and the Early Richmond is one of this group.



Die-back of Apple Trees.



What causes the death of the top shoots in apple trees?

New wood is sometimes diseased by mildew, but die-back is usually due to
two different causes: One, the accumulation of water in the soil during
the excessive rains of mid-winter; second, the occurrence of low
temperatures, including frosts, after the sap has risen. Which of these
causes operate in a certain case depends, of course, upon whether the
soil was heavy and inclined to retain standing water too long, or
whether there were such frosts at about the time when the leaves should
start. Sometimes, of course, both of these conditions worked in the same
place; sometimes one and sometimes the other, but certainly both of them
are capable of causing the trouble. There seems to be no specific
disease; it is rather a matter of unfavorable conditions for growth.



Storage of Apples.