1884.] FRUIT. 79 



ground. You want to make jour growth slow and have it 

 firm and well-ripened. Then your tree will stand a good 

 degree of cold, when if the wood is soft and full of sap, it 

 will winter-kill. Do your cultivation the first of the season, 

 and let it go the last. One difficulty in heading back trees in 

 the summer is that if you head them back very severely, it 

 will start a fresh growth, and the wood will be soft. I 

 think heading a tree back checks the growth and tends to 

 develop fruit buds ; but if you head it back too severely, it 

 will induce a new growth, and you will get the opposite of 

 what you are after. 



Mr. Ayer. When starting an orchard is it safe to plant 

 peach stones ? 



Prof. Clark. Yes, sir. I think that if anyone will plant 

 peach stones and will see to the trees and bud them, he will 

 get better trees than he will to set them. That is what 

 we planted. We have set our orchards all over with apples, 

 and in between we have planted peaches. Where we planted 

 nine Imndred apples, we planted three peach stones for every 

 apple tree. The stones were not very good, and all of them 

 did not grow, but we are going to finish it this spring, when 

 we think we shall have good seed. I think if anyone who 

 knows how to bud will adopt this method and see to the trees 

 (they will require a little better care), he will get fruit just 

 as soon as he will if he sets out trees, and the roots will run 

 deeper in the soil than where they are cut back in trans- 

 planting. I do not think the dry weather will affect such 

 trees as much as it does where they have been reset, for the 

 deep-feeding roots simply give moisture. 



Question. How much wood ashes would it. take to equal 

 a pound of muriate of potash ? 



Prof. Clark. A bushel of wood ashes does not contain 

 over four pounds of potash; probably only about two or three 

 pounds. It will be cheaper to buy muriate of potash than to 

 buy ashes, although in ashes you would get some other things 

 besides potash. 



