THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 



299 



not one person in ten thousand, cultivating 

 the land, among us, thought of any other 

 means of enriching it than that of supply- 

 ing it with barn-yard manure. At the pre- 

 sent moment there is not an intelligent 

 farmer in the country who is not conversant 

 with the economy and value of muck, ashes, 

 lime, marl, bones and a number of less im- 

 portant fertilizers. In all the older and 

 less fertile parts of the country, where 

 manure is no longer cheap, the use of these 

 fertilizers has enabled agriculturists of 

 limited means to keep their land in high 

 condition, and add thirty per cent, to their 

 crops. And any one who will take the 

 trouble to examine into the matter in our 

 principal cities, will find that fifty articles, 

 in the aggregate of enormous value for 

 manure to the farmer and gardener, which 

 were until lately entirely thrown away, are 

 now preserved, are articles of commerce, 

 and are all turned to the utmost account as 

 food for the crops. 



We have been led into this train of 

 thought by observing that after the great 

 staple of the agriculturist — bread stuffs and 

 the grasses — have had that first attention at 

 the hands of the chemist which they so 

 eminently deserve, some investigation is 

 now going on for the benefit of the horti- 

 culturist, and the orchardist, of which it is 

 our duty to keep our readers informed. 

 We allude to the analyses which have been 

 made of the composition of the inorganic 

 parts of vegetables, and more especially of 

 some of the fruit trees whose culture is be- 

 coming an object of so much importance to 

 this country. 



We think no one at all familiar with 

 modern chemistry or scientific agriculture, 

 can for a moment deny the value of specific 

 manures. It is the great platform upon 

 which the scientific culture of the present 

 day stands, and which raises it so high 



above the old empirical routine of the last 

 century. But in order to be able to make 

 practical application, with any tolerable 

 chance of success, of the doctrine of special 

 manures, we must have before us careful 

 analyses of the composition of the plants 

 we propose to cultivate. Science has proved 

 to us that there are substances which are of 

 universal value as food for plants ; but it is 

 now no less certain that, as the composition 

 of different plants, and even different species 

 of plants, differs very widely, so must cer- 

 tain substances essential to the growth of 

 the plant be present in the soil, or that 

 growth is feeble and imperfect. 



A little observation will satisfy any care- 

 ful inquirer, that but little is yet practically 

 known of the proper mode of 'manuring or- 

 chards, and rendering them uniformly pro- 

 ductive. To say that in almost every neigh- 

 borhood, orchards will be found which bear 

 large crops of fine fruit, while others not 

 half a mile off, produce only small crops ; 

 that in one part of the country a given kind 

 of fruit is always large and fair, and in 

 another it is always spotted and defective ; 

 that barn-yard manure seems to produce 

 but little effect in remedying these evils ; 

 that orchards often nearly cease bearing 

 while yet the trees are in full maturity, 

 and by no means in a worn out or dying 

 condition : to say all this, is only to repeat 

 what every experienced cultivator of or- 

 chards is familiar with, but for which few 

 or no practical cultivators have the expla- 

 nation ready. 



We have seen a heavy application of 

 common manure made to apple trees, which 

 were in this inexplicable condition of bear- 

 ing no sound fruit, without producing any 

 good effects. The trees grew more luxu- 

 riantly, but the fruit was still knotty and 

 inferior. In this state of things, the baffled 

 practical man, very properly attributes it to 



