450 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



any chemical fonnula ■will iiiakG ii dcfiiiito amount of oi'gauized vegetable sub- 

 stance, because the economy of the jilant may not be in exact accordance with 

 the chemist's notions. It is not so different from animal life. We may learn, 

 ourselves, from the result of laboratory investigation what we ought to eat to 

 thrive, but we exercise some choice in the matter and do thrive on something 

 quite different, that is more in accordance with our taste. Circumstances and 

 conditions vary so much that it is unsafe to predict what manures to employ 

 for any class of plants. 'Phis has been exhibited time and again in the applica- 

 tion of mineral fertilizers. There is a wholesale disagreement in the results of 

 their use, because under the varying conditions the plants do not choose to do 

 as desired. 



The food of plants, whether we give it in the form of guano, ashes, compost, 

 or muck, depends upon the amount of soluble nutrition they can get out of it ; 

 hence, it is desirable that in whatever form we apply our manure, if we wish 

 cpnck results Ave must make it as soluble as possible. 



The writer of this has jiroduced the best results in the feeding of plants bv 

 the use of composted muck and barnyard manure well rotted, and it is made in 

 thiswise: A layer of muck is put as a foundation of the compost heap, and 

 upon this a layer of barnyard manure ; upon this another layer of muck, and 

 so on, alternating muck and manure, until the heap is four or live feet high. 

 The manure is used in aljout the proportion of one to three of the muck. The 

 whole pile gradually heats and rots together, so that witliout further stirring 

 over, if the heap is made in early autumn, it will be in the best of shape to use 

 the following spring. S. Q. Lent. 



LEAVES AND TEEES. 



It might appear not unadvisable that every leaf should, as it grew, pay a small 

 tax to the stalk for its sustenance, so that there might bo no fear of any number 

 of leaves being too oppressive to their bearer; which, accordingly, is just what 

 the leaves do. Each, from the moment of its complete majority, i)ays a stated 

 tax to the stalk, that is to say, collects for it a certain amount of wood, or 

 materials for wood, and sends this wood, or what ultimately becomes wood, 

 down the stalk, to add to its thickness. As the leaves, if they did not thus 

 contribute to their own support, would soon be too heavy for the spray ; so if 

 the s]iray, with its family of leaves, contributed nothing to tlie thickness of the 

 branch, the leaf families would soon break down under their sustaining loads. 

 Each leaf adds to the thickness of the shoot, branch, and stem, with so perfect 

 an order and regularity of duty, that from every leaf in all the countless crowd 

 at the tree's summit one slender fibre, or at least a fibre's thickness of wood, 

 descends through shoot, through sjjray, through branch, through stem ; and 

 having thus added in its due proportion to form the strength of the tree, labors 

 yet farther and more painfully to jirovidc for its security ; and thrusting 

 forward into the root, loses nothing of its mighty energy until, mining through 

 the darkness, it has taken hold iu cleft of lock or dei)th of earth as extended 

 as the sweep of its green crest in the free air. * * * jf p^.^j. j,j Autumn a 

 pensivencss fall on us as the leaves drift by in their fading, may we not wisely 

 look up in hope their mighty monuments? l?ehold how fair, how far jirolonged 

 in arcii and isle, the avenues of the valleys, the fringes of tiie liills I to stately, 



