STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 149 



were so prominent that all the members of my family noticed them, 

 and certain trees were selected for their special fine qiialitiep, and 

 others avoided on account of the contrary. 



These differences, as herein noted, are full of suggestions, and 

 indicate that a given peach, of special qualities, may be run out in 

 time by iudiscriminate budding or miscellaneous stocks. It also in- 

 dicates that the earliness or lateness of fruiting and maturing the 

 fruit may be affected, and that the tenderness of a variety may be 

 partly bred out by putting on a hardy stock, and the reverse can 

 also be the case. 



•It further shows that to preserve a fine peach, if a seedling, it 

 had better be propagated from seed than by budding; and next to 

 that to preserve its qualities, it should be put on a stock as near like 

 the parent as possible. 



MULCHING APPLE-TREES. 



BY PROF, G, H. FRENCH, CARBONDALE. 



It may be remembered that the conclusion reached in my inves- 

 tigations last year, as to the cause ot the death of so many apple 

 trees from what was known as " winter killing," was that they had 

 too little moisture during some part of the growing season. This 

 would not occur every year, as seasons would differ in the extent of 

 summer drouth; nor would every dry summer be followed by a great 

 loss of apple trees, for the reason that some seasons that had been 

 very dry during July and August would be followed by a mild fall, 

 thus enabling the trees to mature the growth made after the Sep- 

 tember rains. The remedy proposed to counteract this evil was 

 mulching. This was based upon a number of observations in differ- 

 ent parts of the State, the idea being that a coat of hay, straw, coarse 

 manure, or something of the kind, scattered over the ground several 

 feet round the tree, would keep the ground containing the roots of 

 the tree moist at a time when the soil outside the mulching would be 

 dry and hot. 



To test the value of mulching on trees, i last spring asked a few 

 persons in different parts of the State to mulch a few trees, leaving 

 others of the same kind without mulching, and note the result as the 

 season progressed. Conditions have been such that I have not been 

 able to visit any of these orchards this year, and hence can only 

 summarize the reports of the different persons who made the experi- 

 ments. 



Mr. D. W. Lacy, of Belvidere, Boone Co., says: "I have made 

 the experiment of mulching a few apple trees, leaving some without 

 mulching, and have come to the conclusion that it is the only way to 

 insure the production of the apple. This has been a poor season for 

 fruit with us on our prairie, but the gentleman I spoke to you of last 

 year (Mr. Tripp) has sold in our market a large amount of apples 



