UNDER-DRAINING ORCHARDS. 41 



cow-dung spread over it and secured upon it by a cap of 

 canvas or sheet-lead. Smaller stumps should be covered 

 with paint, or with a coating of shellac dissolved in alcohol. 



Too rapid and succulent growth, making imperfectly formed 

 wood, through which the future processes of the growth of 

 the tree or the fruit formation will be inefficiently performed, 

 is occasioned either by too stimulating food in the soil, or by 

 a forcing heat in the climate which excites a growth unnatural 

 to the original habit of the tree. There are also probably 

 other yet unexplained causes for it. The preventive must 

 be determined by the cause. The immediate remedy is 

 shortening-in with a knife one-quarter or one-half of the 

 growth of each year. This is absolutely necessary to the 

 successful cultivation of the peach in many situations in the 

 United States, and, as I have shown, is sometimes used as a 

 remedy for canker in the apple-tree in England.* 



Too retentive a subsoil, or a cold, sour, malarious bed for 

 the roots of an orchard, is only to be remedied by under- 

 draining. Mr. Thompson, of the London Horticultural Society, 

 gives a striking instance of the profit which may attend this 

 operation. 



Having detailed several experiments, he remarks that 

 &quot; want of drainage deprives the roots of proper nourishment, 

 subjects them to a chilling temperature, and forces them to 

 absorb a vitiated fluid.&quot; He then describes an orchard planted, 

 in 1828, upon a retentive marly clay. He says, &quot;the trees 

 grew tolerably well for some time ; but after seven years they 

 began to exhibit? symptoms of ill thriving, and were every 



* The principal enemy of the peach-tree is the borer, a worm which 

 works under the bark, near the surface of the ground. Its presence may 

 be known by the exudation of gum. Trees should be examined for it 

 every spring and fall, and it may be easily pricked out and killed with a 

 sharp-pointed knife. 



