216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



bottoms have very many fibrous black roots. The American 

 varieties all have light yellow roots ; but some trees brought 

 from New Jersey, grown upon red shale soil, have answered 

 nearly as good a purpose as those English bottoms. All those 

 grown on bottoms raised from our old pears, such as the Button 

 pear, have very poor roots, and will almost always blight before 

 they are capable of being worked, and the buds worked upon 

 them will blight, quite often, and if they once blight they will 

 always blight, and the tree is worthless. 



With regard to small fruits, such as strawberries, we in this 

 vicinity cannot cultivate the strawberry as we would like to. 

 "We have one great plague, and that is the robin. We would 

 like to cultivate the strawberry in hills, but if we plant those 

 varieties we want to cultivate in that way, they want nearly a 

 foot square to each hill to get the best fruit and the largest 

 quantity. But if so planted, the birds come along and begin to 

 pick, not one, but the lot ; and there is no way of getting along 

 but by covering the ground. Therefore we have to give up the 

 larger berries and go into the small, that will bear five or six 

 plants to the pot. 



With cherries we labor under the same disadvantage. We 

 find no fault with what the robins pick when we are picking, 

 because that they eat ; but as soon as the cherries begin to ripen 

 they begin to pull on them. I have seen a bird strike twelve 

 cherries in succession, and every one of those cherries was 

 ruined, because they will all rot afterwards. They will never 

 leave off pulling until the fruit is gone ; and as the public senti- 

 ment is now in regard to destroying these birds, we labor under 

 that disadvantage. 



Another trouble is the dor-worm. I suppose it is that. We 

 set out our strawberry plants in rows, and one of these dor- 

 worms will come up and eat off the roots of a dozen or twenty 

 of them just below the surface, and the plant dies. That is 

 another thing we have to contend with. I have lost an acre and 

 a quarter by the dor-worm this year. 



Mr. Wetiierell. Does the robin eat this worm ? 



Mr. Needham. No, sir ; I never saw the robin eat any worm. 

 At cherry time they come in the morning two hours to break- 

 fast, at noon two hours to dinner, and at night two hours to 

 supper ; and they will spoil sixty cherries each time ; there is 



