ORCHARDS. 183 



for that purpose was a light, dry, sandy loam, very poor and 

 without stone, rather unfavorable for apple-trees, but I made up 

 my mind to try it. 



I took into consideration the land and what kind of trees I 

 would set ; concluded to set them nearer than my other orchard, 

 and dug my holes twenty by twenty-five feet apart. This 

 orchard contains eighty-five trees, — sixty Baldwins, ten Hubbard- 

 ston Nonesuch, — the rest, four diiferent kinds. I purchased 

 them in Sherborn, two and three years from the bud, and set 

 them out in the spring of 1860. I dug my holes seven feet 

 wide and two feet deep, placed at the bottom of each tree half a 

 bushel of whole bone, mixed half a horse cartload of meadow 

 muck and one peck of wood ashes with the loam I dug from the 

 hole, then was careful to have the roots in the same position, 

 but six inches deeper than they were in the nursery. I shook 

 the trees well, poured a pail of water in, and trod the earth 

 gently round the roots. I washed them for six years in succes- 

 sion with whale-oil soap and fine sand, and since then, I scraped 

 them the last week in June. I slit the bark of every tree on the 

 north side the second year after setting them out. I pruned 

 them just before washing, and tried, if possible, to have the 

 lowest branches from five to six feet from the ground. The last 

 three years I pruned late in the fall and painted over each 

 wound I made ; those I pruned in the fall did not bleed, and 

 those I trimmed in the summer, and used no paint, did. 



In setting my trees nearer together than thirty-three feet, I 

 knew, from the nature of the soil and the tree, with my treatment, 

 that I should not get a wide-spread top, but the trees would bear 

 earlier; and it proved so. Since 1865 I have had a good show 

 of fruit, and last year they were all loaded ; but the dry weather 

 and over-bearing of last year has spoiled the crops of this. I 

 cultivated the land with corn, potatoes and white beans, seven 

 seasons, and four seasons in grass. I used muck and ashes very 

 freely, and always spread the manure and ploughed it in ; never 

 let any grass or weeds grow within three or four feet of the trees, 

 and kept constant watch of all kinds of insects. Four years ago 

 the cankerworms made their appearance, but tar paper and 

 printers' ink, with a determination to get rid of them, soon 

 cleared them out ; and if my neighbors were of the same mind 

 there would be none in this neighborhood. 



