STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 85 



surface soil, leaves, muck, ashes and litue, thoroughly worked 

 over, will always be of value. 



I do not remember of seeing the point discussed, but it has 

 occurred during the experience of a few years, that there should 

 be a distinction made between our practice of mulching merely 

 for the sake of keeping the ground loose and free from weeds by 

 the use of straw or weeds, and the use of strong though coarse 

 manures. If trees are mulched year after year with manures, a 

 multitude of fibrous roots spring out from the tree above the sur- 

 face of the ground, and the mulch is filled with them. Is this as 

 well as to trench in the manure or spread it broadcast over the 

 surface, and mulch with coarse vegetable substances, as leaves 

 and straw ? 



It is a problem, I think not quite solved in the minds of pomolo- 

 gists, whether we shall make the best application of manure by 

 spreading it over or near the surfiicc of the ground, while trees 

 are in a bearing condition, or whether we shall not secure bet- 

 ter results by trenching in the manure at a greater depth. It 

 may be that both methods are equally necessary. It is certainly 

 worthy the consideration of the Society at some future meeting. 



Allow me to caution you never to replant an old orchard, unless 

 you can follow to the letter the high idea I have set before you. 

 To accomplish anything, a new soil must be made. I have 

 already portrayed the character of an orchard starving to death. 

 Unless the greatest pains is taken, the same results will follow 

 your efforts in this direction. If you lose a sheep it can at once 

 be replaced, and you will soon receive a profit, but not so with an 

 apple tree. If you have a sickly sheep, j'ou may nurse it month 

 after month, and then it dies. You have lost your time, your 

 profits and your i^heep. It is worse than this when you have a 

 sickly looking apple tree. You dislike to cut it down as probably 

 you should do, and so you let it remain year after year a sickly 

 looking tree, and then — let it die. 



High Cultivation Always Necessary. 



It is very difficult raising our ideas to the point that high culti- 

 vation is as necessary for an orchard as it is for a garden. A 

 wrong habit has unconsciously been handed down from our fathers 

 who could plant trees in a virgin soil and they would grow and 

 bear bountifully without any additional manuring. We know well 



