MULCHING- AND PLANTING FRUIT TREES— MULCHING STRA'WBERRIES. 



BY LEWIS F. ALLEN, BLACK ROCK, N. Y. 



Jeffreys says he is going to tell you a story 

 about mulching. So am I. And as he, like 

 Teucer of old, lets fly his arrows from behind 

 the shield of Achilles, or — what is quite as 

 potent in these more peaceful days — in the 

 shade of an incognita, I choose to be more 

 bold than he, and tell my story under my 

 own sign manual, letting it go for what it is 

 worth ; and as he appears to have taken to 

 farming for the remainder of the season, I 

 may possibly be allowed to tell my story 

 without his commentaries upon either its wis- 

 dom or its folly. 



In the July number of the Horticulturist, 

 volume 4, I gave some account of my planta- 

 tion of orchards. I now continue it. After 

 planting my pear trees in the spring of 1849, 

 I again ridged the orchards with the plough, 

 so as to increase the crowns and depress the 

 furrows of the " lands" still more than when 

 the trees were set out, — the line of trees 

 being the crown of the ridge, — and sowed it 

 into buckwheat, as I had proposed, of which 

 I had a fine crop, — leaving the land light, 

 smooth, and in good shape. Thus it stood 

 through the past winter ; the young scions, 

 which I had put into the stocks, having made 

 a good growth, although suffering under a se- 

 vere summer drouth. Last spiing, on exa- 

 mination, I found the land light, and in fine 

 condition for harrowing down, which I did in 

 the month of April, with a seeding of oats 

 and grass, — making it smooth as a garden 

 with a fine harrow. I have cut an abundant 

 crop of oats, leaving the soil smooth and re- 

 gular for the future grass, and the next sea- 

 son's mulching of the trees. 



I will here remark that this pear orchard 

 is, in area, about eighty rods from east to 



west, and twelve rods from north to south, 

 giving fifteen rows of trees, twelve feet apart, 

 and having a gradual inclination from west 

 to east ; and the crown of the ridges standing 

 about eighteen inches above the depression 

 in the furrows. The whole orchard is nicely 

 drained ; each furrow leading off its own 

 water into a general cross drain on the lower 

 side. Another thing I will remark : many 

 of my trees having come a distance of several 

 hundred miles, and been two or three weeks 

 out of the ground — some of them packed in 

 dry straw, without moss, and badly done at 

 that — they had become quite dry and shrivel- 

 led. These I laid at once into the ground, 

 both root and stock, full length, and covered 

 heavily with moist earth, where they remained 

 several days, until fully swelled up to their 

 natural condition, when I trimmed them 

 closely and planted them. Under such treat- 

 ment I saved many that, with common usage, 

 would have been altogether lost. But to 

 have done exact justice to them, they should 

 have been nmlched, as I am about to relate 

 I have treated others. Had I done this, I 

 should probably have saved the lives of seve- 

 ral, which I lost in consequence of bad pack- 

 ing, a long passage, and the cruel mutilation 

 of their roots, in carelessly taking out of the 

 ground by the nurserymen, or their laborers. 

 And here — although I do'nt mean to say of- 

 fensive things to a very worthy and indispen- 

 sable profession — I feel obliged to assert, that 

 there is altogether too little care practiced by 

 some of our nurserymen in taking up and 

 packing their trees. The only object appears 

 to be to get rid of them, regardless of their 

 fate, and, seemingly, by the process they prac- 

 tice, to make their lives as brief as possible. 



