346 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Scofield (of Elgin) said that all kinds of fruit trees^and shrubs, 

 from apple trees to strawberry vines, must be fed if we expect crops of 

 fruit. An apple tree bearing from fifteen to fifty bushels of apples annu- 

 ally, or biennially, takes a vast amount of nutritious elements from the 

 soil, and these elements must be restored to the soil or barrenness will 

 result. He cited a large tree, which was barren through neglect, and 

 which the owner began to manure, using the strongest manures. The 

 next year after the application it bore twenty bushels ; he continued to 

 manure annually, and the product increased until it reached fifty bushels 

 at one time. He then sold the place ; the purchaser neglected the tree 

 and it soon became barren again. Another neighbor, to test the value of 

 manure, manured only each alternate row in his orchard, and as a result 

 these rows became very productive while the others were comparatively 

 barren. After a few years he stopped feeding those rows and manured 

 the unproductive ones, which resulted as before — those fed highly pro- 

 duced large crops — the trees loaded to the ground — while the neglected 

 ones gradually became unproductive. 



Mr. Wier — I have grown up in a large apple orchard and observed 

 many things; among others, I have observed a small orchard, now forty- 

 three years old, which has never been plowed and has never been manured, 

 yet has always been productive. The soil of this orchard is oak barrens — 

 about as poor land as there is in Illinois. Yet this proves nothing as to 

 the value of manure, because the soil is very porous ; and though the hogs 

 have been turned in to eat the fallen fruit, yet it is evident to me that 

 these trees were fed by manure from the air, which is freely admitted 

 through the porous soil. As to feeding trees, we may set it down as a 

 rule that when trees do not make an annual growth of from six to ten 

 inches they require manure. 



Mr. Scofield (of Elgin) — It is probable that the droppings of the 

 hogs fed that orchard sufficiently. 



The Secretary — I have considerable faith in the dust-cloud theory 

 of Prof. Tyndall, hinted at by Mr. Wier. I have known instances of 

 productiveness in thoroughly pulverized light soils for a long term of 

 years, which I could account for only on the theory that the soils absorbed 

 their fertilizing elements from the air. The experiments which have been 

 made by Prof. Tyndall and other scientists, showing the prevalence of 

 spores and germs of almost numberless species of vegetable life, and also 

 the presence of .manureal elements in the lower strata of the atmosphere, 

 are interesting and instructive, and in some cases absolutely conclusive. 

 It is always necessary to know the nature and treatment of soils pro- 



