POMOLOGICAI, MEMORANDA. 



trees found it out as quick as I did, and they have now, the very first season after being 

 relieved of that cold stagnant water in the soil, already made more growth than in the 

 three last years before. 



Trees of any kind — not water trees — must have a dry and warm soil to grow luxuriant- 

 ly; and if the soil on which they are wanted to stand be cold, wet and clammy, thorough 

 draining will warm it. I have orchard trees now standing, where the year before they 

 were planted was a low swale, but dried by cutting a good ditch through it, and they are 

 the thriftiest trees in the field. One cause no doubt is, that the swale soil is the richest, 

 but before it was drained fruit trees would not grow in it; standing water was upon it for 

 two-thirds of the year, and it yielded nothing but water grass and bushes. An expense 

 of five or ten dollars in ditching has relieved the entire difficulty, and given the best pos- 

 sible soil for a hundred trees to luxuriate, and grow, and rejoice as laughingly as so many 

 frolicking colts in a summer pasture, besides yielding as good crops as any of the adjoin- 

 ing upland. Ditch, ditch, ditch, your cold and clammy soils for tree planting! 



Wild or Natural Stocks for Fruit Ttees. — It is probably not for the interest of 

 nurserymen to believe it, but I have no doubt whatever that natural stocks, up as high as 

 the branching point, are the best for the finer fruits. Let the grafting or budding be done 

 at that point, and I do believe the tree will live twice or thrice as long as if done near to 

 the root. Look at the old orchards, even on poor soil in the old states, that were planted 

 when grafting and budding was little practiced, or scarce known in our country, and see 

 the enormous size and great age of some of the trees. Many of the trees, to be sure, were 

 grafted, but it was done years after they were planted, and in the branches. The huge 

 rings on many of them show that. 



Take a common wilding from the nursery or a hedge row, cut it with your saw or knife, 

 and see how much tougher and harder it is than the delicate wood of a refined fruit. See 

 the one stand out through all vicissitudes, and grow and flourish, while the other withers, 

 and blights, and cankers under all the care you may give it, unless it be now and then 

 one of the hardiest constitution, which escapes and thrives. The notes of j'our thorough 

 and capital correspondent, Mr. French, in the June Horticulturist, p. 257, are a practical 

 commentary on the hardihood of natural stocks in surviving the harsh treatment they re- 

 ceive at the hands of bunglers — and I have seen thousands like it — sufficiently so to lead 

 fruit growers into the trial, at least, of wildings for their standards — and for pears more 

 especially. 



A fact in point I will mention. Some time since I purchased of a nurseryman a lot of 

 apple trees — in the lump — standing on a certain quarter of his grounds which he wanted 

 to clear away. Many of the best worked trees had been taken out and sold. Of the re- 

 mainder probably half were worked at the root and the remainder natural stocks, work- 

 ed originally, but failed and grew up wild and scrubby. As the worked trees were not 

 of the kind I wanted, I took them up indiscriminately, intending to graft them over, with 

 the natural stocks, into kinds that I wished. When they were removed, I found the roots 

 of the wildings to be on an average full twice as stout and numerous as the worked stocks, 

 although the roots of these last were wildings. In a few days I cut them all off branch 

 high and grafted them. I found the wildings much harder in the wood — for I sawed off 

 and trimmed every one myself — than the others, and when planted, some in the orchard, 

 and others in nursery rows for the purpose of making more growth before planting out, 

 the wild stocks budded out thicker and stonger than the worked stocks, and made a bet 

 ter growth. I should be happy to hear the views of experienced men on this subject 



Black Rock, N. Y., June 24, 1S51. LeWIS F. AlLEN 



