WINTER MEETING, ]882. 23 



nearly bearing condition, over 3,000 fruit trees with excellent success. I settled 

 upon an entirely new farm. Of course it was tlie second year after I moved 

 upon it before 1 could set a tree. The second year I set an orchard sufficient 

 for the home use of the farm. After the first day's work in digging holes, I 

 let the job of digging them to a young man, paying him the price of a day's 

 work for each four holes dug. In this case the old forest roots were many of 

 them green and had to be grubbed out. The lioles were dug live feet in 

 diameter, about two feet deep, the subsoil being gravel and sand, and the 

 holes so dug were then filled with the richest surface soil. It was considerable 

 work to set that orchard of sixty-four trees, but it paid me well. The fifth 

 year from setting I took an even bushel of apples from one tree, a Belmont. 

 I was satisfied in after years that I missed in management in letting the tree 

 mature that amount of fruit. I should have clipped off when small three- 

 fourths of the apples set. This tree, which had outstrii)ped all its competitors 

 iu the orchard, did not recover from the drain upon its vitality in maturing 

 that crop for years, if ever, and I think died before it was fifteen years old. 

 I have become fully satisfied that more healthy, thrifty, well cared for young 

 apple trees are ruined in this way than any other. Those men who can dig 

 the holes and set anywhere from twenty to forty fruit trees in a single day, 

 will never be troubled in this way; at least I never kuew of one. Thus all 

 methods and ways have their compensations. Of the sixty-four trees set the 

 second spring after moving on my farm, I lost not one. Every tree made a 

 good growth, and some of the new growth measured over three feet. I rec- 

 ollect I had to write and tell my Massachusetts friends of this, that they 

 might know that Michigan laud was not all swamp, or oak barrens. Michigan 

 land had rather a hard name in New England forty years ago. In the main 

 the inhabitants of New York and Ohio knew better, and perhaps rather got 

 the better of New England on account of her ignorance and too implicit 

 trust in the reports of United States surveyors. 



In the spring of 1861-3 I set out my large market orchard of about 1,100 

 trees in one solid block of nearly twenty-five acres. The holes were dug as I 

 dug them for my first orchard, five feet in diameter, varying in depth from 

 sixteen inches to two feet, according to the soil, which varied from a heavy 

 clay loam to a rather light sand loam. Ten holes were about the average of a 

 day's work in this orchard. I commenced fitting this land by rolling under a 

 heavy growth of red clover about the first of August, which would have made 

 over two tons of hay per acre. A large plow and two yoke of oxen were used 

 for this purpose. The land was then cultivated and sown to wheat, which 

 yielded nearly thirty bushels per acre. As soon as the crop was harvested I 

 again plowed the land to the same depth as before, thus bringing to the top 

 the largest part of the rich vegetable mold, which was used to fill the holes 

 when dug, and furnish pabulum for years to the young trees. As soon as the 

 trees were set, which was done very rapidly, as I placed the trees in position 

 while two men fitted the holes and filled over the roots, one man fitting the 

 hole while I was getting the tree, so that the roots could quickly be placed in a 

 natural position, when two or three shovelfuls of the finest, richest earth ob- 

 tainable was quickly sifted over tlie roots. That tree was then left for the 

 second man, who gently pressed down the earth and roots, filling up the hole 

 a little above the surface with the richest soil obtainable within fifteen feet of 

 the tree. As soon as the trees were set I had two teams drawing mulch from 

 two or three old straw stacks that had been partly eaten and lain upon by 



