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ame: Robert Wilder
/Title: Living Lore
Ci
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and Feed
Man
G.O. Dunnell
Mr. Dunnell was lovingly rubbing the blade of his axe with
a small whetstone. "I'm getting this axe ready to fix the fences
on Christian Hill that the hurricane busted," he said. "Not that
the hurricane blew 'em down, but it diu blow down some trees.
And the trees is what busted the fences. I clim' over one. Had
to, to get to camp, and I see they was more down. Couldn't do
anything that night because itv,as getting aalk,,and I Wad to
come home, but I'm going back just as soon as the roads get set-
tld enough so's I can.
"It's a funny thing, but I don't think that, as a rule, there
was as much wind over that way as we got here. What did most of
the damage was the water. And, another funny thing I noticed was
that of the trees that come down in the apple orchards, it was
the ones that had never been grafted. Those that had been grafted
stooa up.
"How'd I know? I know most every apple tree they is on Col-
rain and Shelburne mountains, and in the north part of the town of
Greenfield. 'Cause I was the feller that grafted 'am, that's
why! I used to go all over gr,liting trees. And I had ten or
twelve hundred trees of my own, too, that I'd no business leaving.
But people would come and tease me and tell a* how much extry
they were willing to pay for my trouble, that I was generally on
the move. Once I went to Greenfield. And I didn't get home for
a week. Spent the nights therewith the different ones.
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Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man
G.O. Dunnell
°Course, they's a trick to it. But 'most anybody can put
on a scion so's it'llgtow. But that ain't all they is to it.
You got to figure what the tree's going to be shaped like. You
shouldn't get the scions growing into each other the way most
people do. And' you ought to fix the tree so's somebody can pick
the apples without tying a couple of ladders together or hiring a
balloon.
"Apple trees like to grow among the rocks that is, most
kinds do. The hills each side of our valley here are just right.
Al]. we can grow here tha-L,'s any good is the blue pearmain. And
they got such a tough skin that people don't like 'am. ''hey are
an awful good, flavor,. though, until they got mealy oh, they's
others; russets, and early transparent and so on. But what I was
getting at is the way I found the best of raising good flavored
apples. Apples grow wild over in Colrain. It is just as natural
to find a wild apple tree in Colrain as it is to find a pirch in
Warwick. I had a lot of 'em in my woods.. 'Course, the fruit of
a wild apple tree is no good except for cider. But the trees
themselves is generally healthy. I'd find a good one, then I'd
saw off such limbs as I thought should be off. Then I'd slit a
place, on some stump of a limb I'd sawed off, and put a scion in
it. If it was a fairly big limb that I figured would pinch the
scion off if I didn't do something *Out it, I'd whittle a little
thin wedge and put that in just beyond the scion, for the limb to
pinch on to.
"What do I mean by scion? Why that's a little shoot from the
Name: Hobert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man
G.O. Dunnell
brand of tree I wanted. I had Balwin scions and McIntosh scions
and Porter scions, and all kinds of scions. I cut 'em in March
that's the best time to graft around here. Maybe, I'd make a
Baldwin tree out of a wild apple tree, or a Greening, or a Northern
Spy. Sometimes I fixed 'em so's they had different kind of apples
on every limb. But that's nothing but a kind of joke. Nobody
that runs an orchard wants trees with fruit all mixed up on 'em.
"I said I only put one scion to a limb. I always put two,
'cause somethin, might happen to one. They break off in ice storms
sometimes. And I always put 'em one above the other 'cause I
figured it's better and stronger that way. You whittle off one
side the scion and stick it in the crack you've made with your
knife in such a way that the live bark on the scion presses up
against the live bark on the tree. And then you hold the scion in
place with wax. Then you cut off all the limbs below the one
that you've grafted. The sap has to go somewheres. And when it
finds that the limbs huge been cut off, and they ain't no place
to go, except into the bark of the scions, that's where it goes.
You've got to figger nct to cut too many limbs off, though. For
if they's more sap than can get into the scion and make it grow,
it'll leak out under the wax and rot the scion off. I generally
left the top of the tree pretty much alone until I found out how
the scions were doing. If they wee growing all right, I'd cut
the top off then.
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Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Livina Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man
G.O. Dunne].).
"Lot of people put on taw scions the way I done. But when
then both growed they let 'em grow together. That makes a crotch.
And a crotch ain't strong. I always cut off one scion just before
they growed together. And the bark would grow over the place and
make a smooth branch.
"Once, I grafted a whole tree. And that tree stood up through
the hurricane, too. Yer see, when a crust comes.on the snow, or
anything happens so the mice can't hunt, you're supposed to go
around the orchard tromping down the snow around the trees. You
tromp it down hard right around the trunk, and the mice won't
get to the bark. But I missed this tree someways. Or the mouse,
mayue, was a wood rat. Anyway, it ett the bark all the way 'round.
It was a good tree. Had good roots, and as 'it. would die if I
didn't do something about it, I thought I better try. I cut the
trunk of the tree off and put scions all the way 'round in the
bark. Enough of 'em grew so I managed to raise a tree. I told
the fellerIcho owns the place about it, and he found it hard to
believe for it don't look no different than any other tree to him.
°Lots of people insist on growing an orchard from nursery
stock, That's all right if you want to wait ten or fifteen years
for a crop. But if you want your trees to begin bearing in three-
four years you want to graft a few scions on to a full grown tree.
If you take your scions from a tree that has apples you like, you
can oe sure that you'll get the same flavor apple when the scions
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man
G.6. Dunnell
begin to bear. But when you buy from a nursery you got to wait
ten or twilive years to find out if you got what you paid for.
'Course, they's some crook nursery men, I slpose, but they ain't
many. It's the agent whose the crook And it's a preety good
game when a feller don't know he's been gypped until ten -twelve
years. By that time the agent ain't no longer in the employ of
the company, probably. And if he was, nobody wotld know who made
the "mistake" and the whole thing be outlawed so's you couldn't
get it into court. I don't say that a good nursery wouldn't be
awful sorry it happened and make good, too. But the way they'd
make good would be to give you some guaranteed new trees that
you could wait for to bear for another ten -twelve years.
"When Doc Brown and his brother first come they lived in
houses side by side. And they planted the two back lots for an
orchard. I told the Doc that this wasn't a good place to raise
apples, but the Doc said, (No, no2) that I was wrong. That he'd
had the soil analyized down at the State College. And that they
said it was good soil and all right."
"All right, Mister I says. Now you take out your little
book and you write down what I'm going to tell yer. So's you won't
forget I says. 0 -But you see more money when you took out
your pocketbook to pay for them trees than you'll ever see coming
back into it from your orchard.' But, oh no, I was wrong.
Name: Hobert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: Living Lore Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Ilan
G.O. Dunnell
1°What kind of tress be they?! I wanted to know. !Baldwins,0
he says. And it seemed he had paid an extry price to get some
real good trees.
"I see they wan't no use talking to him and trying to help
him so I forgot about it 'til several years had gone by when I
saw him and his brother working in the orchard. You know, they's
a pest of borers that bores holes in the trunki of apple trees
right above the ground, and if you're quick enough you can ram
a wire in and either kill the borer, or fish him out, but if he's
bored 'round a bend or two, you are out of luck your tree is
gone. bo it pays to vitch your orchard. Was a time when yer didn't
need to spray your trees. But you do now two -three times.
"Well, I goes down into the orchard and asks what they was
doing. They tAd me. And I asked what kind of trees thesevas.
I'Baldwins* they told me. tA few of 'em are, I admitted. But
most of 'em is Gravensteing.) 400h, no14 says the Doc, "That
can't bee It was a reliable firm we bought them of and they
was guaranteed Baldwins a 'specially good brand.' 'Well,' I
says, 'You still get your little book? Now, put it down, so you
won't forget it, or tie a stringaround the trees, or somethihl,
and you just wait 'til they's apples on 'em and see.'
"But they didn't wait. The brother sold out to a poor, little
runt of a mean, miserable, cuss that I don't want nothin' to do
Page 7
Name: Robett Wilder
Title: Living Lore
Assignment:. Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man
G.O. Dunnell
with. But I didn't know what a kind of low -lived skunk he was
then, so I tried to be neighborly. I asked him what kind of.
trees he had in his orchard. he says that they was Baldwins.
That that was what the ministers said that sold him the place.
'Well, they ain't,' I says. 'They is Gravensteins most of 'em.1
0But they ain't no goodl 0 he says. I told him I didn't think
they was any good myself not even for cider. He wanted to know
how how I was so sure. And I showed him the difference in the
leaves. He thought he had better wait and make sure before he did
anything about it. That it didn't seem to him that ministers
would lie. I told him he needn't wait to find that out. That
everybody in Northfield knowed that ministers are the biggest
liars they is, 'cuase they honestly believe their lies themselves.
That if he aimed to become a bonnie fidie resident of Northfield,•
he'd better' find that out, and learn to set one against the other.
That some places you needed lawyers to do business for you4 but
here in Northfield you needed ministers, and if you didn't
have one you were all out of luck.
"He was going to cut down the Gravensteins but I told him no,
and showed him how to graft 'em with scions from the Baldwins.
The little cuss, never did it, though, he turned out to be too
dumb lazy.
"Heh, hehl When he had his accident my wife says, 'Now, you
Name: Robert Wilder
Title: Livina Lore
Assignment: Northfield
Topic: The Hay, Grain, and
Feed Man
GI 0. Dunnell
keep your mouth shut! People know you don't get along with him.
And they won't like it, if you go talking about him. You knew
about it didn't yen? The little cuss always was snooping around
in something that was none of his business. And this time he
was going over to Charlie Stearns' to play cribbage with him.
But he couldn't walk up to the door like a man. Oh, no, he had
to take a peek in a winaer first to be sure therwas no one there
visiting. he wouldn't think of interrupting nobody, see, with
a neighborly call. If he'd a gone in and found that there was
someone there. And that they was busy -.And didn't want to play
cards, and didn't want him around, he wouldn't know enough to
get out, see? He wouldn't know what to say, or what to do. So
he had to peek in a winder first. 'Course, it was dark, and he
didn't think anybody would notice. But what he didn't notice
either was that they was a bulkhead under the winder. And that
the bulkhead was open. When he put his neck out to look in the
winder he stepped off into space. And I guess they thought in
the house that a skelton must a fallen out of a closet. He broke
his hip bone principally when he hit the cement bottom. And the
groans he let out scared everybody nigh to death.
"They don't judge me right: 'Course, I'd a gone and helped
the old fool out of the hole, if I'd a known he was there. I'd
Name: Robert Wilder Assignment: Northfield
Title: Living Lore
Topic: The hay, Grain, and
Feed an
G.O. Dunnell
help any neighbor out of a hole, if I could. 'Course, spme of 'em
I 'might throw back in after I got 'em out. That old fool was over
eighty when he broke his hip. It mended good as new. The fall
would a killed any decent person. And you know the saying, 'The Good
Die Young.' Guess that's a fact."