in the neighbourhood of Montreal, 105 



noticed any parts of apple trees to be blackened to the extent tbey 

 now are, until these last four years past. There might, indeed, 

 occasionally have been symptoms of decay in some trees, and 

 in certain localities, but the cause in such cases was easily ac- 

 counted for. This commonly occurred when trees were planted 

 in hard blue sub-soil, saturated with water at all seasons of the 

 year, without the least attention being paid to drainage. On 

 consulting any of the British authors who have written on the 

 culture of the apple, they will all be found to agree that the soil 

 should undergo a thorough preparation, previous to planting, and 

 that it should be trenched at least to the depth of two feet. If 

 such preparation is an essential in such a mild climate as Great 

 Britain, it is much more so in Canada, where we have frequently 

 such a long continuance of drought in the summer, and severe 

 frost in the winter. I have often been struck with the short 

 life of the apple trees about Montreal. There was an impression 

 made on my mind, in early life, that the apple was a long lived 

 tree. I have known apple trees in the west of Ireland, in the 

 neighborhood of the town of Sligo, to attain the age of 150 years, 

 and then to be bearing good crops of apples. I also find that 

 A. J. Downing, one of the most reliable and best American au- 

 thors, in writing on the age of the apple, says he saw in* 

 Rhode Island, two trees 130 years old. He however reckons our 

 fine garden sorts to live only from 50 to 80 years. Now, I ques- 

 tion if we could find about Montreal, any of our fine garden sorts 

 half that age, that is 40 years old. He also strongly recommends 

 trenching the soil, and says it adds greatly to the long life of the 

 trees. I must confess that I have not seen that proper attention 

 paid to fruit trees in the neighborhood of Montreal which they re- 

 quire. I have seen, in many cases, trees planted on the green 

 sward, without any other preparation than simply making a hole 

 and putting in the tree ; leaving it afterwards to take care of it- 

 self. In such cases the result may be easily conjectured. In taking 

 up numbers of both pear and apple trees, the heads of which were 

 dead, I have found that their roots were generally perfectly sound, 

 not showing the least symptom of decay below the surface. The 

 cause of decay does not therefore lie with the root. 



The question often occurs to me, shall we ever see Montreal 

 producing the fine fruits that it did twenty-five years ago ? The 

 markets were then filled to overflowing with the finest varieties 

 of the plum and the pear, and a pretty good quantity of the peach 



