136 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



fully pruned out every year, after the season's growth of wood 

 was made. 



With the exception of a few trees in the fields which have 

 been well cultivated, manured and scraped, I have not culti- 

 vated or manured the orchard thus far; have only grafted and 

 pruned. I propose to put one or two loads of swamp-muck to 

 each tree next winter, and the ensuing season one or two 

 bushels of ashes ; cultivation is impracticable. 



The varieties grafted are one hundred and twenty-six Bald- 

 wins, thirty Hubbardston Nonesuch, five Roxbury Russet, and 

 fourteen of various other varieties. The expense incurred for 

 reclaiming the main orchard has amounted to about one dollar 

 per tree, and the income nothing to speak of until this year, 

 when I obtained nine barrels of apples, which sold for twenty- 

 seven dollars. 



Reclaimed Pear Orchard. — The reclaimed pear orchard 

 which I offer for a premium consists of forty trees, thirty of 

 which are, from the best information I can obtain in relation to 

 their history, from eighty-five to ninety years old ; the remaining 

 ten are of various ages, from twenty years upward. Most of 

 them have never been cultivated. They produced naturally a 

 small native pear, intended originally for perry. 



In the spring of 1853, when they came into my possession, 1 

 commenced grafting them, cutting off about one-third of the 

 top of each tree. Twenty-three were grafted that season. The 

 next year, 1854, I grafted about one-third of the remaining 

 limbs upon these trees, and commenced on about half of the 

 remaining trees. In 1855 I continued the process of grafting, 

 as in 1854, and commenced on the last and poorest of the trees; 

 in 1856 I finished grafting those first commenced, and continued 

 with the others in nearly the same manner. 



Most of the old trees I have manured with about one-third 

 of a cord of swamp-muck, and two bushels of ashes each, spread 

 around the trunk of the trees in a circle of about sixteen feet 

 diameter, and have mulched most of these with leaves and 

 brush. Where the soil admitted of it, I have recently ploughed 

 around the trees, and am now cultivating nearly one-half of 

 them, including several of the younger trees, which have been 

 well cultivated and manured four or five years. 



