WINTER MEETING AT CARTHAGE. 95 



VALUE OF SALT IN THE ORCHARD. 



PRKFACE. 



[[n a ten minute essay on any subject on horticulture, only a text can be 

 given ; therefore, you must excuge brevity, because assertions only can be given 

 instead of lengthy arguments and minute explanations to each assertion. 



To the Missouri State Horticultural Society and its many willing workers is 

 this brief and radical essay respectfully dedicated by the author, Conrad Hartzell. 



ADDENDA. 



In their great admiration of and love for each other, Adam and Eve, like their 

 posterity, all neglected to use salt, consequently spoiled. Our first parents were 

 commanded to dress and keep the orchard, garden, to use salt. They disobeyed 

 and refused to believe God. They yielded to temptation : it is supposed the tempter 

 was a bogus tree agent. By permission. — C. H.] 



Many orchard owners do not yet know the great value of salt on fruit-trees 

 and in the ground where the trees grow. Among the many orchard helps, no one 

 of them stands ahead of salt. For cheapness as well as value, it is at the front ; to 

 prevent disease and blight in trees and fruit, salt has no equal ; properly used in 

 sufficient quantity, salt is a sure prevention to pear-tree blight, to peach-tree yel- 

 lows and black knots in cherry trees, as well as death to the millions of pestiferous 

 insects in apples and apple-trees ; causing great thrift and long life to all kinds of 

 fruit-trees. Clean trees and orchards pay best. 



Salt maybe used to good advantage in any and all orchard lands. Sown 

 broadcast is the b^st way to apply salt in the orchard; from two to three barrels 

 per acre is a clever dressing: i. e., when the trees are washed semi-annually with 

 (wood ashes) lye, salted as follows : one quart of salt in two gallons of strong lye, 

 applied to all parts of the body of the trees, and especially at the base of the trees ; 

 first of April and first of October is best seasons to apply the wash ; all scaly and 

 rough bark should be removed before washing trees. Salt sufficient in the land 

 where the orchard trees grow is of incalculable value, but not more so than is a 

 sufficient quantity of salt taken inwardly by the orchard worker to secure good 

 health; this is also a most important thing to know, but a much more important 

 thing to do. Good health possessed by the orchard owner and orchard worker is 

 absolutely indispensable to the best results ; salt used instead of quinine and 

 mercury or other deadly drugs would prove to all good orchard people a universal 

 panacea for fruit eaters. Salt is a great civilizer of people, a tamer of wild boys ; 

 farmers' sons will not run away from home when the orchard bears good fruit 

 plentifully, and the daughters will be healthy and most joyous when well salted, 

 having plenty of good health-giving fruit. They will also be good-natured. 



Very many years' experience in the special use of salt enables me to speak 

 understandingly in regard to the value thereof ; in different qualities of land as well 

 as in different individul people is plainly seen different results, but in all people as 

 well as in all lands, especially orchard land, salt is a great necessity. In many 

 places the earth is well supplied with salt, but in Missouri and adjoining states the 

 surface of the earth lacks a sufficient supply of that necessity, hence the tree blight ' 

 and fruit failure, and in people at the orchards much blood poison from neglect of 

 sing salt instead of drugs, which is only good for doctors, drug-stores and the 

 undertakers. Orchard owners may profit by the timely use of salt at much less 

 ex ense than that commonly borne by all who have tried other helps, which sel- 



