ar-trees nor peeling as on cherries. In dry weather, the loose
old bark is dark brown-gray, often supporting gray lichens, but in
rain it is soft and nearly black, yielding pleasantly to the touch. In
the forks, the bark is not so readily cast and there the chips may lie
in heaps. On the young limbs and small trunks the bark is tight and
close, not splitting into seams or furrows with the expansion of the
cylinder but stretching and throwing off detached flakes and chips.
Under the chips various insects hide or make some of their
transformations. There the codlin-moth pupates. The old remains of
scale insects may be found on the exterior. In the furrows about the
dormant buds the eggs of plant-lice pass the winter.

To destroy these breeding and hiding places, many careful
apple-growers scrape away the loose bark, being careful not to expose
the quick living tissue; and on the younger wood the eggs of aphis and
other pests, as well as cocoons and nymphs, are destroyed by vigorous
winter spraying. The regular spraying of apple-trees, in the different
seasons, more or less sterilizes the bark. Many forms of canker, due
to fungi and bacteria, invade the bark, making sunken areas and scars,
often so serious as to destroy the tree. All these features are
discoverable in the apple-tree.

The trunk of the apple-tree is short and stout, usually not perfectly
cylindrical and not prominently buttressed at the base. In old trees
it is usually ribbed or ridged, sometimes tortuous with spiral-like
grooves, often showing the bulge where the graft was set. The wood is
fine-grained and of good color, and lends itself well to certain kinds
of cabinet work and to the turning-lathe for household objects; it
should be better known.

[Illustration: 2. The apple-tree in the landscape]

If left to itself, the tree branches near the ground, making many
strong secondary scaffold trunks; but the plant does not habitually
have more than one bole, even though it may branch from the very base;
it is a real tree, even though small, and not a huge shrub. In the
natural condition, the trunk often rises only a foot or two before
it is lost in the branches; at other times it may be four or six feet
high. Under cultivation, the lowest branches are usually removed when
the tree begins to grow, and an evident clean trunk is produced. In
Europe and the Eastern States, it has been the practice to trim the
trunk clean to the height of four or six feet; bu