226 



now TO RENOVATE AN OUTCAST. 



rioiis parts of the country, first drew our 

 attention to this fact. We have lately seen 

 a paper, read before the Academy of Scien- 

 ces at Paris, by M. Boussingalt, bearing 

 directly on the diseases of plants as affected 

 by the salts of iron, which confirm and extend 

 our own crude views on this subject. The 

 substance of this essay we shall, at some 

 convenient moment, lay before our readers. 



In the mean time, we beg the attention 

 of our readers to the plain and simple mode 

 adopted in the experiment below. If, as 

 we are convinced, a tree, which some have 

 condemned as an " outcast " from pomolo- 

 gical society, may be renovated so easily as 

 this, it is quite worth while to " spare " it. 

 The quantities of the substances added to 

 the soil to renovate it, were, it should be 

 remembered, applied to a tree neax\y fvll 

 grown. One half, one-fourth, or less, should, 

 of course, be used to trees of correspondingly 

 less size and age. 



A hint may be taken from this treatment 

 of old trees, for the better culture of young 

 ones on soil naturally unfavorable. — Ed. 



To the Editor of the Horticulturist : 



You will remember the conversation we 

 had together three years ago, about the ap- 

 parently worn out condition of my Virgalieu 

 or St. Michael {Doyenne — Ed.) pear trees. I 

 spoke of them then, in the language of 

 Knight and Kenrick, as " degenerate out- 

 casts." Though they had once borne me 

 excellent crops of fruit, which I have never 

 seen surpassed, yet for several years they 

 had only produced cracked, blighted, mise- 

 rable fruit — indeed such as was absolutely 

 worthless. 



I remarked to you, that I considered the 

 variety worn out, and good for nothing in 

 my neighborhood, and that I intended to 

 cut down my trees, which were large and 

 fine, and ought to yield every year several 

 bushels. 



My situation is a sheltered one in West- 

 chester county; and after some inquiries 

 about my soil, which is a light, though ex- 

 cellent, sandy loam, you told me that you 

 believed the trees had exhausted the proper 

 elements from the soil ; that in consequence 

 the fruit failed, and recommended me, in- 

 stead of cutting them down, to renovate 

 them. 



Struck with the force of your reasoning 

 at the time, which I have not leisure now 

 to repeat to your readers, I determined to 

 make a trial with two trees. I did so, in 

 the fall of 1S43. I have now the pleasure 

 of repeating in writing, what I told you ver- 

 bally, that I have now had two crops of 

 beautiful fair fruit, as excellent as the finest 

 that grew upon my soil twenty years ago. 



As many persons about New- York and 

 Long-Island, have trees of the Doyenne or 

 Virgalieu pear in the same degenerate con- 

 dition in which mine were, I comply with 

 your request to give a simple statement of 

 my proceeding with my trees, premising in 

 the outset, that it is entirely based upon the 

 hints I received from you. 



In the month of October, 1843, I took in 

 hand two large and thrifty Virgalieu pear 

 trees, about twenty or thirty feet in height. 

 I first scraped ofT all the rough outer coat 

 of bark, and coated the trunk of the tree 

 over with soft soap, put on with a paint 

 brush. 1 next cut out about one-third of 

 all the poorest branches, and shortened the 

 head of the tree one-third, by " heading 

 back " the principal limbs, covering the 

 wounds after paring them, with the "shell- 

 lac solution," (the best thing I have ever 

 tried,) recommended on page 32 of the 

 " Fruits and Fruit Trees of America." 



I then dug a trench, four feet wide around 

 the whole ball of roots, veTy much as if I 

 were going tp transplant it. I left a ball 

 of roots, h, untouched about six feet in dia- 



