SUMMER MEETINa. 83 



plants from a dozen different parties the past spring, but none equal to 

 those I got from him. He sent me fifteen plants of pansies in the sea- 

 son, and just now they are as fine a lot as I ever saw. They far sur- 

 passed anything on his place when I was there. This shows what a 

 man can do and what opportunities there are for horticulturists here 

 ^nd there. 



Of course it would not need many such to supply the wants of the 

 community, but there is a chance for any man to make a good living 

 and a little money near any town of a few thousand inhabitants. 

 Any town, where the people are up to the times, will use $50 worth 

 of strawberries for every 1000 inhabitants, and some towns double 

 that quantity. 



The reader will pardon me for exulting in this man's success, 

 when I tell them that when he was but a boy he got his first les- 

 sons and inclinations to horticulture from me. He told me whilst 

 there, that one stroll through my grounds was when the first impres- 

 sion struck him, and but for that he would likely now be a merchant, 

 as he was then a store-boy. 



One thing is certain : as a rule, the horticulturist lives a little 

 better than the average of men, as they always have plenty of fruit 

 and vegetables to eat. He uses 400 to 500 loads of manure annually, 

 and his grounds show it. His soil is an excellent one naturally. 



Orchard Cultivation. 



This might be appropriately called tree cultivation. On this sub- 

 ject men differ widely, as their published ideas indicate, but the proper 

 or best methods of cultivating trees and plants is a science. Nature 

 marks the best ways of tree culture by their roots, limbs, fruit, and all 

 the circumstances attending the growth and fruit bearing of trees. 

 The roots are the first consideration to tree life, because they draw up 

 and supply sap life for the top growth of buds, leaves, limbs, blos- 

 soms and [fruit. Then a supply of a large amount of roots is abso- 

 lutely necessary to produce a good, healthy and full-bearing tree, with 

 its limbs, buds, blossoms and ripened fruit. 



It is an absurdity to suppose that a tree can produce a full crop 

 of sound fruit after its horizontal roots have been cut away by deep 

 plowing or spading, or when large limbs have been cut away from the 

 sides of the trunk by a sudden pruning ; because, when those roots 



