190 THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



an injurious aspect or to faulty cultivation, more especially with respect 

 to mulching, and wliich under other and more favorable circumstances 

 might turn out to he an acquisition. 



It would also add much to the interest and usefulness of local 

 reports to say whether the insect pests were prevalent during the past 

 yeal", — for they are all more or less abundant, sometimes swarming, 

 sometimes "conspicuous for their absence," in varying seasons — 

 together with such remedies as may have been successfully applied for 

 th6ir extermination, appended to such reports. 



BLACK FUNGUS ON THE SNOW APPLE. 



BY JOHN CROIL, AULTSVILLE. 



I sent the ^Editor this morning a sample of diseased apples. I am 

 sorry to say the complaint is common here, and more hurtful to us 

 than the dreaded peach yellows or plum black-knot is to you. I must 

 say I seem to have suffered more than my neighbors, and am at a loss 

 to know why, unless I have killed with supposed kindness. This 

 idea was somewhat strengthened lately, when on looking at one of my 

 neighbor's apple bins of the same species (the Fameuse), I found that 

 the fruit was free from spots, and in ev3ry respect superior to mine. 

 I questioned him about his orchard management, but he Ensured me 

 there was little management about it. He didn't manure it in any 

 shape, unl6ss the name could be given to an occasional pailful of soap- 

 suds administered by the washerwoman to a few trees the nearest to 

 the house. Ite had not applied lime, ashes, Or any other fertilizer for 

 years. His trees were mostly growing in sod, crowded into space less 

 than half the distance w6 would allow. He pruned very rarely. 



I have adopted treatment directly the opposite. My orchard has 

 been faitlifully cultivated ever since planting, ten years ago. I have 

 given repeated heavy dressings of unleached ashes, at other times 

 liberal applications of barn-yard manure, and have pruned regularly in 

 June. I feel almost inclined to adopt the text in Isaiah v. 4. — "What 

 could have been done more to my vineyard," &c. 



My more fortunate neighbor, witli no care or expense, had on 

 ■trees planted about the same time as mine, finer fruit and far more of it. 



