168 



MULCHING STAWBEIIRIES. 



root grafted, vigorous and liealthy. But I 

 do not claim all this exemption from loss in 

 the superiority of their planting. The imme- 

 diate planting of the trees after their removal 

 from the nursery, before the roots got dried — 

 although some of them did get a good deal 

 withered, as they lay for hours exposed to a 

 drying wind and an open sun, (which was all 

 wrong, for dirt should have been thrown over 

 them,) I consider a great advantage. Nor 

 were the roots extraordinarily well taken up. 

 We worked sharp. I did not superintend all 

 that part of it myself ; but either my foreman 

 or myself saw every tree well planted ; held 

 it up as the earth was thrown upon it, and 

 shook it up and down as it was filled in, that 

 the soil might become well incorporated with 

 the roots. 



I should like to show that orchard of trees 

 to any one. Next spring I intend to mulch 

 them as I did my others ; and if they do'nt 

 show growth, it will be strange. I ought to 

 say, in giving you the whole story, that this 

 thirty acres of land is in various crops this 

 year : corn, potatoes, buckwheat, spring wheat, 

 oats, white beans, ruta-baga, sugar beet and 

 carrots, hoed and sowed crops, and the trees 

 nearly alike in appearance over all ; but if 

 any difference, the trees in the hoed ground 

 are the best. I intend ploughing all the land 

 again the coming fall, chiefly for next spring 

 solved crops, when I shall seed the whole into 

 grass for mowing ; and in the ploughing, ridge 

 the earth up to the trees in " lands" two rods 

 wide, with a good " dead furrow" between 

 each to pass ofi" the swrplus water. 



I will further remark, that there were some 

 low places in this orchard ground, as a small 

 portion of it had never been ploughed be- 

 fore, — having been cleared off" but a few years 

 ago — and in pasture ; and there are two or 

 three low sivales or ravines in it, where the 

 water runs in the fall and spring. In these 

 swales, where is a heavy, black soil, I set the 



trees on the top of the ground, or dug but 

 very slightly for them, or even raised a table 

 of earth to plant them on, as circumstances 

 required, intending hereafter to throw the 

 ground into proper shape by ploughing, and 

 opening furrows and ditches, so that no stand- 

 ing water may remain. Ten acres more of 

 ground I have left for orchard purposes, now 

 in sod, which I intend to plough this fall and 

 plant next spring, as I have before done ; and 

 this gives me 2,200 trees in my apple or- 

 chard, — completing, in all my fruits, a planta- 

 tion of eighty acres of orcharding ; after 

 which, I intend to take a rest. 



Mulching Srawberries with Spent 

 Tan-bark. — Professor Coppoek, in the July 

 Horticulturist, recommends this ; but I can 

 beat him in the trial. In grapes, I give it 

 up altogether ; for I am not a grape-grower, 

 and he is — an accomplished one, too. I 

 know of none better. 



Wishing to add some new varieties to my 

 strawberry family, I sent, late last fall, to 

 Mr. M. Gr. Warner, of Rochester, for one 

 hundred each of Black Prince, Burr's New 

 Pine, and Rival Hudson. He sent my order, 

 principally filled, with three hundred of the 

 handsomest plants I ever saw ; some of them 

 with roots, fresh and young, six to nine inches 

 long. They were beauties ; (everybody do'ni 

 do so.) It was November. I planted them 

 in a spent vegetable bed in the garden — clay 

 loam soil — intending them for propagating 

 solely. I had cut off my asparagus haulm, 

 and after planting the strawberry vines as 

 they should he, I covered them with the 

 haulm, and laid a few sticks across to keep it 

 from blowing off for the winter, — supposing 

 it would give them sufficient protection. But 

 not so. The winter was open and bare. 

 Looking in upon my bed about Christmas, or 

 New Year, I found that many of my vines 

 were lifted out by the frost, — the haulm 

 not lying close enough; and saw that I might 



