CULTIVATION OF THE PEAR-TREE. 65 



slope. But though the labor demanded in this branch of industry is greater, the 

 question is a pertinent one, Whether that labor does not have its reward in richer 

 and more highly flavored fruit than the "West can grow. Some facts that have 

 come to my knowledge, though few, seem to me to look in that direction. 



^[y farm vras literally and emphatically a v/orn-out one, but having a rolling 

 surface, with a soil of gravelly loam, the decomposed sandstone of New Jersey, 

 and a like subsoil with such a proportion of shale as to give it the requisite poro- 

 sity for producing rich fruit, I commenced deepening the soil by the use of the 

 subsoil plough, and manuring with common barnyard manure. This accom- 

 plished, and one crop taken from the field, the holes were dug of sufficient depth 

 and width, that, when properly filled, the tree would stand about as deep in the 

 soil as it stood in the nursery row. No one thing have I been more anxious to 

 secure than sufficient depth of hole, filling it a foot or more with sods, and 

 spreading over these pulverized surface soil to give an even surface ; spreading 

 the roots on this, adjusting even the little rootlets, so that they will readily come 

 in contact with the nutriment given them, always taking the precaution to have 

 those rootlets covered lightly with fine pulverized loam, rather than the stimulat- 

 ing compost appropriate for the filling up. 



And on the composition of this for our greedy soils depends very much of our 

 future success. No composition has given me such satisfaction in its lasting 

 influence on vegetation as one of muck pulverized by the frosts of winter, mixed 

 in the spring with lime or ashes, bone-dust, and charcoal charged with urine or 

 fresh poudrette. When all of these, or such of them as one can command, tho- 

 roughly mixed through the summer and fall with barnyard or stable-manure, are 

 thoroughly commingled with equal quantities of good loam, you have a manure 

 rich enough in inorganic elements, if not to merit a premium, to give you fruit 

 that will universally be acknowledged to be deserving of it. 



Properly filling the hole with this and the surface soil, the work is done, except 

 keeping the ground free from weeds in the summer, and the soil between the trees 

 occasionally stirred and loosened, as demanded in the cultivation of a potato crop. 

 My favorite practice is to mulch with straw or refuse hay, believing that it serves 

 to manure the soil independent of its decomposition, possibly by absorbing and 

 retaining ammonia and other gases that play such an important part in the vege- 

 tative process. 



The depth of hole which was diminished by the foot of sods to underlie the 

 trc!', will be a life insurer to the tree, during the severest drought. The mulch, 

 however, will be a guarantee, if such be needed, that death from this cause will 

 not overtake it. 



(to be coxtixued.) 



[Dr. Ward is welcome to our pages. lie has a right to be heard, having 

 undertaken for pears (and other fruits) what Dr. Underhill has successfully carried 

 out in grapes, the supply of a great want to the New Yorkers. He will open the 



