;d Mbnunieiit of 2'rees. 207 



well founded. Perhaps some of our older peach orchardists can explain the why. 

 My opinion is that the aggregate crop may fall short about one-third, and the 

 coming season will prove how far wrong my conjectures have been. So dejected 

 have some large peach growers become, they have said they were willing to sell out 

 for little or nothing. One in particular, offered to sell the whole of his large 

 orchard for six cents a tree. I think he will change his tune before the middle of May, 



'Note ly Editor. — Recent estimates, by the Peninsula Fruit Growers' Association, 

 of Delaware, place the figures at 2,300,000 baskets, a falling off of over twenty-five 

 per cent on crop of 1872. The crop marketed last year was nearly 3,500,000 baskets. 



A Momiment of Trees. 



A sketch of the history of Thomas Hiimilton, Earl of Haddington, recounts his 

 love of tree planting, and the fact of the publication of a book " on Forest Trees," 

 composed mainly of letters from his pen to his grandson. He is shown to be one of 

 the most sagacious and enterprising of rural gentlemen, in the improvement of his 

 domain, but loved the pleasure of the hunt too well. His wife took upon herself the 

 fancy that trees could be planted and made to grow, and the author thus recounts the 

 way she came to carry out her will : 



"When I came," he says, "to live here (Tyningham), there were not above four- 

 teen acres set with trees. I believe that it was a received notion, that no tree would 

 grow here on account of the sea air and the northeast wind ; so that the rest of our 

 family, who had lived here, either believed the common opinion, or did not delight in 

 planting. I had no pleasure in planting ; but delighted in horses and dogs, and the 

 sports of the field ; but my wife did what she could to engage me to it, but in vain. 

 At last she asked leave to go about it herself, which she did, and I was much pleased 

 with some little things which were well laid out and executed. These attracted my 

 notice, and the Earl of Mar, the Marquis of Tweedale and others, admired the 

 beauty of the work and the enterprise of the lady." 



After her ladyship had succeeded in rearing several ornamental clumps, she pro- 

 posed to enclose and plant the moor of Tyningham, a waste common of about three 

 hundred Scotch acres. The Earl agreed to her making the experiment, and, to the 

 surprise of every one, the moor was speedily covered with a thriving plantation, that 

 received the name of Binningwood. His lordship was tempted, by the success of 

 these trials, to enter himself, with great eagerness, into the plan of sheltering and 

 enriching the family estate by plantations. He planted several other pieces of waste 

 land, enclosed and divided his cultivated fields with strips of wood, and even made a 

 tract along the seashoi-e, called the East Links, which had always been regarded as a 

 barren sand, productive of the finest firs. 



" And thus," says Mr. McWilliam, in his ingenious and useful ' Essay on the Dry 

 Rot and Cultivation of Forest Trees,' "did her ladyship, to the honor of her sex, 

 and benefit of her lord and her country overcome the prejudices of the sea and the 

 barren moor being pernicious ; and of horses and dogs being the best amusement for 

 a nobleman ; converting a dashing son of Nimrod into an industrious planter, a 

 thoughtless spendthrift into a frugal patriot." 



Thus can good wives in ev'ry station, 



On man work miracles of reformation, 



And were sucli wives more common, tlieir husbands would endure it, 



However great the malady, a living wife can cure it. 



And much their aid is wanted; we hope they'll use it fairish, 



While barren ground, where wood should be, appears in every parish. 



