Secretary's Budget. 395 



yields scarcely more than half the hay or pasturage given by alfalfa, 

 in the point of quality the latter is greatly inferior. The stalks of 

 alfalfa are nearly solid and woody, and the waste in feeding is 

 great compared with clover. — Prairie Farmer. 



MANURING FRUIT TREES. 



One of the leading contributors to the London Garden makes 

 the following good practical remarks in favor of a practice which 

 fruit growers in this country are finding of great importance : 



It is singular how long some fallacies retain their liold, even 

 after they have been disproved by facts, and of these, one of the 

 most mischievous is the belief that fruit trees and bushes are liable 

 to injury rather than benefit from the application of manure. All 

 sorts of diseases, such as canker and other ailments to which fruit 

 trees are liable, are set down as the result of applying manure to 

 the roots ; whereas, in nine cases out of ten, it arises from poverty 

 of the soil, causing the roots to run down into the bad subsoil. I 

 am continually hearing complaints from owners of fruit trees as to 

 their unsatisfactory condition, and on examination have invariably 

 found scarcely any surface roots or fibres of any kind, nothing but 

 large, thong like roots, that run right down into the subsoil. On 

 inquiry 1 have usually found that manuring or top-dressing had 

 not been practiced for many 3^ears, their owners having come to the 

 conclusion that such practices were dangerous. 



I do not say that manure will prove to be a cure for fruit-tree 

 ailments of all kinds, but I will briefly detail a few facts that have 

 come under my observation at various times, to prove that starva- 

 tion of the roots is a far more prolific source of injury than abund- 

 ant feeding of the surface roots, both with solid and liquid manures, 

 and growers must form their own conclusions as to the best course 

 to pursue. The fruitful or unfruitful state of orchard trees in nine 

 cases out of ten is entirely dependent on the attention which they 

 receive as regards manuring. In the fruit growing parts of Kent, 

 where large orchards of standard trees planted on grass laud is the 

 rule, it is a well established fact that if the grass is cut for hay and 

 carried away, the trees soon become unfruitful and die out ; while, 

 on the contrary, if the grass is fed off, so that the nutriment is re- 

 turned to the roots in the shape of manure, the trees keep fruitful 

 and healthy. I have seen some of the most moss-grown, miserable 

 specimens of starved orchard trees restored to fruitful condition by 

 making the gi'ound beneath them the winter quarters of sheep and 

 pigs, feeding them the same time as if they Avere in -the farmyard 



