INDIANA HOBTICULTUEAI. SOCIETY. 413 



POTASH IN FRUIT CULTURE. 



As far back as my recollection extends, the orchards of southeastern 

 Ohio were situated on the river bottoms. On the Muskingum and the Ohio 

 rivers the earliest orchards were planted on the first plateau, which is 

 generally not more than 10 or 12 feet above the low water mark. The soil 

 of this plateau was originally very rich; it produced aspens, beeches, 

 poplars, and occasionally a Carolina poplar. But trees growing in this 

 rich alluvial soil were soft-wooded and did not make durable timber. 



The apple 'trees on these bottoms grew to an enormous size. I remem- 

 ber an Early Chandler which, I think, was 60 feet high. An apple fall- 

 ing from the top and striking the hard ground would burst to pieces. 

 Neither did the apples keep well. There was too much vegetable matter 

 in the soil. Our Putnam Russets seldom lasted through February. The 

 old orchard served a good purpose in its day by protecting the houses on 

 the bend from broken ice in the spring flood. But the soil it occupied 

 was valuable for corn, the old trees were cut down and their stumps, 

 though often two feet through, rotted out of the way of the plow in about 

 five or six years. 



The second orchard had been planted on the slope of the fourth plateau, 

 a yellow clay loam; and it came to be a matter of remark in the family 

 that the apples from this kept better in the spring than those from the old 

 orchard. The fruit was better flavored. We did not know much about 

 potash in those days, but we knew that a Rome Beauty tree, planted on 

 the inside of an immense hollow walnut stump, where the soil had been 

 enriched with ashes, produced exceptionally flue, hard, long-keeping apples. 



Later on hogs were allowed to run in this orchard the year around. 

 They rooted it so energetically that sometimes laterals six inches in diam- 

 eter were wholly above the surface. The vigorous rooting, the destruction 

 of all unsound and wormy fruit, and the heavy manuring, made an enor- 

 mous yield of fine, smooth, large apples every year. But again it became 

 a subject of remark that they were not keeping as well as they should; 

 they were too much like the apples from the old orchard in that respect. 

 They were receiving too much animal manure. The trees grew too 

 rankly, their wood was too soft. One night a cyclone went through diag- 

 onally and cut a narrow swath clean; every tree snapped like a pipe- 

 stem. They had needed potash to make them hard and to make the 

 fruit long-keeping and give it character. But even then we had no clear 

 idea what the matter was, and we decided on one more removal. 



The third orchard was planted quite off the river plateaus, .300 or 400 

 feet above the river level, on a hill of which the north side was very 

 red clay and the south side yellow clay. The trees on this south slope 

 were planted among the ledges, we sometimes used the crowbar in mak- 

 ing the holes and scratched around for enough fine earth to cover the roots. 

 As the roots grew they wormed in and out among the stones and some- 



