302 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS. 



a healthy structure of all the other parts 

 must rest, it appears to us a rational deduc- 

 tion that upon their presence, in sufficient 

 quantity, must depend largely the general 

 healthy condition of the leaves and fruit. 

 Hence, it is not unlikely that certain dis- 

 eases of fruit, knt)wn as the bitter rot in ap- 

 ples, the mildew in grapes, and " cracking" 

 in pears, known and confined to certain dis- 

 tricts of the country, may arise from a defi- 

 ciency of these inorganic elements in the 

 soil of those districts, (not overlooking sul- 

 phate of iron, so marked in its effect on the 

 health of foliage.) Careful experiment will 

 determine this ; and if such should prove 

 to be the case, one of the greatest obstacles 

 to universal orchard culture will be easily 

 removed.* 



What we have here endeavored to con- 

 vey of the importance of certain specific 

 manures for fruit trees, is by no means all 

 theory. We could already give numerous 

 practical illustrations to fortify it. Two 

 will perhaps suffice for the present. 



The greatest orchard in America, most 

 undeniably, is that at Pelham farm, on the 

 Hudson. How many barrels of apples are 

 raised there annually, we are not informed. 

 But we do know, first, that the crop this 

 season, numbered several thousand barrels of 

 Newtown pippins, of a size, flavor and beau- 

 ty that we never saw surpassed ; and second, 

 that the Pelham Newtown pippins are as 

 well known in Covent garden market, Lon- 

 don, as a Bank of England note, and can 

 as readily be turned into cash, with the 



* It will be remembered that, in our work on Fruits, we 

 opposed tlie theory that all the old pears, liable \o crack along 

 the sea coast, and in some other sections of the country, were 

 " worn out." We attributed their apparent decline to unfa- 

 vorable s.iil, injudicious culture and ungenial climate. A 

 good deal of observation since those views were published, 

 has convinced us thai " cracking" in the pear is to be attri- 

 buted more to an exhaustion, or a want of, certain necessary 

 elements in the soil, than to any other cause. Age lias little 

 or nothing to do with it, since Van JMon^s Leon Le Clerc, one 

 of the newest and most vigorous of pears, has cracked in 

 some soils for the past two years around Boston, though per- 

 fecily fair in other soils there, aud in the interior. 



highest premium over any other goods and 

 chattels of the like description. Now the 

 great secret of the orchard culture at the 

 Pelham farm, is the abundant use of lime. 

 Not that high culture and plenty of other 

 necessary food are wanting ; but that lime is 

 the great basis of large crops and smooth, 

 high flavored fruit. 



Again, the greatest difficulty in fruit cul- 

 ture in America, is to grow the foreign 

 grape in the open air. It is not heat nor 

 fertility that is wanting, for one section or 

 another of the country can give both these in 

 perfection ; but in all sections the fruit mil- 

 dews, and is, on the whole, nearly worthless. 

 An intelligent cultivator, living in a warm 

 and genial corner of Canada West, (bor- 

 dering on the western part of Lake Erie,) 

 had been more than usually successful for 

 several seasons in maturing several varie- 

 ties of foreign grapes in the open air. At 

 length they began to fail — even upon the 

 young vines, and the mildew made its ap- 

 pearance to render nearly the whole crop 

 worthless. Last season, this gentleman, 

 following a hint in this journal, gave one 

 of his grape borders a heavy dressing of wood 

 ashes. These ashes contained, of course, 

 both the potash and the lime, so necessary 

 to the grape. He had the satisfaction of 

 raising, this season, a crop of fair and ex- 

 cellent grapes, (of which we had occular 

 proof,) from this border, while the other 

 vines of the same age (and treated, other- 

 wise, in the same way,) bore only mildewed 

 and worthless fruit. We consider both 

 these instances excellent illustrations of the 

 value of specific manures. 



We promise to return to this subject 

 again. In the mean time it may not be 

 useless to caution some of our readers 

 against pursuing the wholesale course with 

 specifics which all quack doctors are so fond 

 of recommending — i. e., "if a thing is 



