236 THE FLORIST. 



frost. Downing, in his work, the " Fruits and Fruit Trees of 

 America," treating on orchard culture, says, " The hearing year of the 

 Apple, in common culture, only takes place every alternate year, owing 

 to the excessive crop which it usually produces, by which they exhaust 

 most of the organisable matter laid up by the tree, which then requires 

 another season to recover, and collect a sufficient supply again to form 

 fruit buds. When half the fruit is thinned out in a young state, 

 leaving only a moderate crop, the Apple, like other fruit trees, will bear 

 every year, as it will also if the soil is kept in high condition. He adds 

 in a note, " One of the finest orchards in America is that of Pelham 

 farm at Esopus, on the Hudson. It is no less remarkable for the 

 beauty and high flavour of its fruit, than the constant productiveness 

 of the trees. The proprietor, C. J. Pell, Esq., has kindly furnished us 

 with some notes of his experiments on fruit trees, and we subjoin the 

 following highly interesting one on the Apple : — ' For several years 

 past I have been experimenting on the Apple, having an orchard of 

 2000 bearing Newtown Pippin trees. I found it very unprofitable to 

 wait for what is termed the ' bearing year,' and it has been my aim to 

 assist Nature, so as to enable the trees to bear every year. I have 

 noticed that from the excessive productiveness of this tree, it requires 

 the intermediate year to recover itself — to extract from the earth and 

 the atmosphere the materials to enable it to produce again. This it is 

 not able to do, unassisted by art, while it is loaded with fruit, and the 

 intervening year is lost. If, however, the tree is supplied with proper 

 food it will bear every year ; at least such has been the result of my 

 experiments. Three years ago, in April, I scraped all the rough bark 

 from the stems of several thousand trees in my orchard, and washed 

 all the trunks and stems within reach with soft soap ; trimmed out all 

 the branches that crossed each other, early in June, and painted the 

 wounded part with whitelead, to exclude moisture and prevent decay. 

 I then, in the latter part of the same month, slit the bark by running 

 a sharp pointed knife from the ground to the first set of limbs, which 

 prevents the trees from becoming bark-bound, and gives the young 

 wood ain opportunity of expanding. In July I placed one peck of 

 oyster-shell lime under each tree, and left it piled round the trunk until 

 November, during which time the drought was excessive. In November 

 the lime was dug in thoroughly. The following year I collected from 

 these trees T700 barrels of fruit, part of which was sold in New York 

 for four and others in London for nine dollars per barrel. The cider 

 made of the refuse, delivered at the mill two days after its manufacture, 

 I sold for 3f dollars per barrel of 32 gallons, exclusive of the barrel. 

 In October I manured these trees with stable manure in which the 

 ammonia had been fixed, and covered this immediately with earth. 

 The succeeding autumn they were literally bending to the ground with 

 the finest fruit I ever saw, while the other trees in my orchard not so 

 treated are quite barren, the last season having been their ' bearing 

 season.' I am now placing round each tree one peck of charcoal 

 dust, and propose in the spring to cover it from the compost heap.' " 



If time and space allowed, I could make many more extracts from 

 this work to show that in America orchards, when neglected, bear crops 



