384 State Horticultural Society. 



CULTIVATION. 



ORCHAKD MANURING. 



By E. P. Powell, ^ev^ York. 



So much miscliief can be done by applying manures of the wrong 

 kind in orchards that I doubt if we do not lose more by manuring than by 

 neglecting to manure. Fruit trees do not require at any time barnyard 

 manures, or their equivalent. What they require is a supply of inor- 

 ganic food. You can do no better for apple trees than to supply them 

 with coal ashes in which there is a liberal admixture of wood ashes. The 

 coal ashes loosen the soil; the v/ood ashes furnish the fertilizer. If you 

 can get a supply of old mortar you have just the thing you need. A 

 mixture of lime and salt, when so mixed as to leave no free salt, is excel- 

 lent for all fruit trees. All such manures should be applied as top 

 dressing. A peach or plum orchard needs nothing better than swamp 

 muck or earth from the woods with a slight addition of phosphate and 

 potash. 



If barnyard manure is applied at any time, it should be thoroughly 

 decomposed and applied as a top-dressing. Such manure, if placed 

 about the roots, when planting a pear or apple tree, will kill it. Grapes 

 of course want phosphates and potash. They will also respond to a free 

 application of liquid manures during their periods of rest, both in winter 

 and in midsummer. All the tall growing berries, of the bramble sort, 

 will use a large amount of organic manure. But be careful about dress- 

 ing your raspberries mth rank undecomposed barnyard manure. The 

 probability is at any time you will develop a fungoid disease that you can 

 not easily master. If you use barnyard manure in raspberries it should 

 be thoroughly comminuted with the soil as a compost. In fact, I prefer 

 to compost all manure before it is placed on my gardens. Equally 

 important as the manure is the mulching of our fruit trees and bushes 

 of all sorts. — Orange Judd Farmer. 



