10(5 



Mr. Wright. — I may mention one experiment I tried. I thought that if I could 

 protect the main trunk of the tree, the rest would perhaps live. So I had my man go to 

 "work and make a lotof hay wisps such as come around bundles of cutlery of the sort that 

 farmers use, and I wrapped the fruit trees in my ground around with these from the 

 earth up to the top. The next spring when I took that hay off the tree I could see like a 

 spiral groove going up the tree where the wisps of hay had gone round. It was black 

 wherever the hay had not touched ; and there the bark was as green and fresh and nice 

 as could be. I tried that two winters in succession, and I found that my trees were 

 worse off instead of better. 



Mr. Beadle. — I would like to ask Mr. Wright if the snow falls at his place in time 

 to prevent the frost from getting into the ground to any depth. 



Mr. Wright. — Oh, we have any amount of frost. It goes right down through the 

 snow and everything else ; and sometimes it comes long before we have any snow. 

 The only thing I have found to do any good is to draw muck and put it around the 

 bottom of the trees. That prevents 'the frost getting in so soon. The frost breaks 

 through and tears the roots all asunder. 



Mr. Beadle. — In our climate we are not troubled about tender apple trees ; but we 

 sometimes have things in regard to which we are in doubt as to whether they will stand 

 even that climate — more particularly ornamental trees ; and we find that by mulching 

 the ground with barnyard litter we succeed in keeping the trees hardy enough to bear 

 the winter. It is a fact that is well established with us that many trees will perish from 

 the cold of winter because their roots are kept so solid and so hard during a long period 

 of time that the trees die ; but if we can succeed in getting them to live until they root 

 out into the moist soil below the frost, then we often succeed in getting them to grow, 

 and live, and bear our winters well. The theory that we have in regard to this is that 

 the cold winds and frosts of winter are always drawing up by evaporation a certain 

 amount of moisture from the tree although it may have no leaves on it. 



Mr. Wright. — This experience is entirely different from my own. We have 

 adopted an entirely different plan. If we allow the roots to go down the frost will tear 

 them right asunder. So we have to try and prevent the roots from going down ; and in 

 order to do that we adopt this plan : — We get a large pine tree — as large as we can — and 

 saw slabs off it about three inches thick and thirty-four inches wide ; we lay these down 

 in the ground and lay muck on top of them ; then we plant our tree on that, and raise it 

 up as high as we can. The object of doing this is to prevent the roots going down any 

 further, so that when the frost heaves it will heave all up together, and not go through 

 this tearing operation. Then we have a mound around each tree in the fall. 



Mr. Beadle. — Supposing you were to keep the frost out from around the tree 

 altogether by a species of mulching 1 



Mr. Wright. — We cannot do it. The frost will go down there four feet. The 

 mercury freezes in our part of the country. 



Mr. Dempsey. — It often occurs that there is a variety of pear or something else 

 which we would like to grow, but which proves a little tender. I have found on my own 

 grounds that some tender varieties of pears that I have grow very well if they are on the 

 north side of a hardier foliage, and in a very thick clump. I cannot grow the Beurre 

 de I'Assomption at all when exposed ; but set beside other varieties in the way I menticm 

 I find it very hardy. 



Mr. Wright. — That is my experience too. I may mention that on the grounds of 

 the Fruit and Floral Company at Arnprior they have as fine a specimen of the Flemish 

 Beauty as I have ever seen, which blossoms every year, but has never any fruit on it. 



Mr. Bristol (Picton). — About fourteen yeai's ago I set out about 150 apple ti'ees. 

 Yesterday I went down and took a sort of inventory of them, and I assure you I felt a 

 great deal discouraged. There were 156 trees altogether. I set them out in 1868 ; 

 and at present there are fifty-two of them comparatively healthy, forty-nine unhealthy ; 

 and fifty-five dead and gone ; and some of the fifty-five trees have been planted over and 

 over again. Throughout the whole orchard the bark turns dark. I can show a specimen. 

 (The speaker produced and showed a specimen of a branch of a tree diseased in the 

 manner he described.) 



