Yes, probably.  Certainly you should try it.  You should also cultivate less and slow down the growth.  If they then take to bearing, you can resume moderate pruning and better cultivation.  This is on the assumption that your trees are in too rich or too moist a place.  But you should satisfy yourself by inquiry and observation as to whether the same varieties do bear well in your vicinity when conditions are such that slower growth is made.  If the variety is naturally shy in bearing, or if it requires cross-pollination, the proposed repressive treatment might not avail anything.  In that case you can graft over the tree to some variety which does bear well or graft part of the trees to another variety for cross-pollination.

No Apples on Quince.

How large a tree will the Yellow Bellefleur apple make if grafted or budded on quince root at the age of 15 years?  I have been trying to get some information about dwarf fruit trees, but it is difficult to get.

No wonder the information is hard to get.  The Yellow Bellefleur will not grow upon the quince at all, or at least not for long.  In growing dwarf apples the Paradise stock is used, while the quince is used for dwarfing the pear, and many varieties of pears will accept the quince root which the apple rejects.

Stock for Apples.

Do you recommend French seedling stock as greatly to be preferred to that grown in this country?

French seedling stock is generally used because it is graded and furnished in uniform sizes; also, because it can usually be purchased for less than seedlings can be grown under our labor conditions.  Locally grown apple seedlings are apt to be irregular in size and, as already stated, cost more than the properly graded imported stock.

Apples and Alfalfa.

I have recently come across a proposition to sow apple orchards in the interior of southern California with alfalfa.  The apples are said to be superior and the crop heavier, to say nothing of a half or two-thirds of an alfalfa crop in addition to the crop of apples.  What do you know about it?  Is alfalfa being used by others in this way?

It is perfectly rational to grow alfalfa in fruit orchards if the water supply is ample for both the trees and the intercrop and the owner will not yield to the temptation to waterlog his trees for the sake of getting more alfalfa.  It is even more desirable in the interior than near the coast, probably.  In Arizona some growers have for a number of years practiced growing alfalfa in orchards, cutting the alfalfa without removing it, counting that clippings are worth more to them through their decay and the increase of the humus content of the soil.  Even where this is not done, the alfalfa will add to the humus of the soil by its own wastes both from root and stem.  The presence of an alfalfa cover reduces the danger of leaf and bark burning either by reflected or radiated heat from a smooth ground surface, and some trees are very much benefited by this protection in regions of high temperature.  This might be expected to be the case with the apple, which is somewhat subject to leaf burning in our interior valleys.