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cess. Apart from these considerations, the one process is as good as the other. 

 Grounds intended for a fruit garden, or orchard, if not naturally dry and rich, 

 ought to be made so by ditching, deep-plowing and manure. Thus prepared, 

 the holes for standard trees should be at least thirty feet apart each way for 

 apples ; twenty for pears and cherries ; fifteen for peaches and plums, and dug 

 three feet or more in diameter, sixteen to twenty inches deep, then filled up with 

 top soil, one to two bushels of well rotted manure, (leaf mould is better) and one 

 gallon of lime or good ashes to each, mix thoroughly and plant as low as they 

 stood in the nursery. Care should be taken to preserve the roots and top about 

 equal, and as full as possible, and the latter from the sun and air till planted. 

 By this process, and by staising and mulching and watering trees once or twice 

 there need not be one tree in a tiiousand lost by transplanting, or perceptibly 

 checked in their growth. Nor need the spring, nor fall, nor moon be consulted; 

 provided the sap is dormant and the frost is out of the ground. 



The after culture should be in root crops, beans, cabbage, pumpkins, or some 

 low variety of corn for four or five years — not forgetting to manure well, espe- 

 cially, with lime or ashes about the trees. With this attention, and once wash- 

 ing the trunk of the trees with soapsuds or ley, the first warm weather every 

 spring, the grubs and borers would leave us the pleasure of more thrifty trees 

 and better fruit and more of it than we generally see. 



Apples intended for winter use should hang on the tree till cool weather, or 

 until they commence dropping off — then picked and assorted with care, on a 

 clear dry day — put into new, tight barrels, headed up and removed, without 

 jolting, to some cool, airy place, where they should remain till moved for the 

 winter to a dry cellar or fruit room, which should not take place as long as they 

 are safe from freezing. An apple will not freeze in the open air till the mercury 

 sinks some 12 deg. below freezing point. 



Should you find anything in this of use, in making up your report to the 



legislature, take from it such items as will serve your purpose. But I pray you, 



let not its homely face appear in public. 



Very respectfully, 



JOSEPH ORR. 



DRAINING WET LANDS. 



Laporte, November 23, 1851. 

 Governor Wright : 



Dear Sir : — I have just read your speech, delivered before the Wayne County 

 Agricultural Fair, and am pleased with your views about our wetlands. These 

 lands are not generally appreciated by our citizens, mainly, because they are 

 unfit for present use. They must be relieved of their excess of water, and then 

 have the sun and changes of seasons to mellow them before they are fit for use. 



Many suggestions and experiments will be made, before we arrive at the 

 cheapest, and best mode of improving them. The depth of muck, under-strata, 

 be it clay, gravel, or quick sand, and descent, must all come into the account, 



