OUCIIARDS. Ill 



protection from drought and excessive heat, so common in the 

 south and west during the middle or hitter part of the Sum- 

 mer season. This mulching, or sJiade^ is required for all 

 plants in their infancy, or, when they have suffered violence 

 from removal. 



Note. — The advantages of mulching over clean culture is lessened in 

 consequence of the shelter afforded by the former to depredating insects. 

 This shelter, however, may be rendered very uncomfortable by mix ng 

 tobacco stalks with the mulch, say 15 or 20 lbs. to each tree. "Walnut 

 hulls, vines, and leaves will answer the same purpose. 



REMEDIES FOR THE REMOVAL OF MOSS. 



Moss, in Horticulture, is a disease which greatly impedes 

 the free growth of young trees, and effects the thrift and 

 health of those that are grown up, and, at the same time, very 

 materially injures the fruit of orchards. 



The remedy usually employed is, to scrape off the moss 

 with a kind of wooden knife, that will not wound the bark or 

 branches ; or, to rub them with a strong hair cloth, or coarse 

 woolen, immediately after a heavy rain. But the most 

 effectual method, according to Mr. Bucknall, consists in 

 washing all the affected branches with soap-suds, and a hard 

 brush, every Spring and Autumn. The action of rubbing, 

 he observes, will so far invigorate the tree as amply to com- 

 pensate both the labor and expense : the plant will not be in- 

 jured by this operation, which he directs should be performed 

 in the same manner as a groom curries, or scrubs, the legs of 

 a horse. (Moist weather, or directly after a rain, should be 

 chosen for this business, as the moss may then be easily dis- 

 engaged.) The most efficacious preventive, hoAvever, is to re- 

 move the cause, by draining all superfluous moisture from the 

 roots ; and, when the trees are first planted, by placing them 

 on the surface of the ground and raising a small mound of 

 good, fresh mould around them, (If this preventive, '^ placing 

 the trees on the surface," was practiced in our dry, hot cli- 

 mate, no mulching or watering would save the young scions, 

 but it might answer very well in the cool, moist climate of 

 England,) or in low, very moist lands in this country. 



