AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 353 



ill IT from two to tliree pounds. lie used of this crop only enough to test 

 thoroughly their quality. The nest spring he sold them in small quanti- 

 ties to his neighbors for seed, at an extra price. My father procured some 

 of the seed, and raised them for many years, and always considered them a 

 valuable kind to raise, especially for feeding stock. They were not so good 

 for table use as many other kinds ; but they grow better toward spring, 

 and perhaps at that season of the year they are on an equality with our best 

 varieties. They will go further in seeding than any other kind I now re- 

 member, and yield much better than the average. I think them a valu- 

 able addition to the already numerous varieties." 



Mr. Robinson continued. — This is very interesting and valuable inform- 

 ation — this tracing varieties back to their origin, and proving that things 

 sold for new are only some old ones with new names. 



RENOVATING OLD ORCHARDS. 



I will now read you a very valuable lettei' from a woman, upon the treat- 

 ment of old orchards, plum trees, rosebushes and flowers. It is fi'om Ruth 

 H. Lynde, of New Bedford, Mass., who has written us a very sensible let- 

 ter upon renovating old orchards, and other things. Here is what she says 

 about what she did with the old apple trees : 



" Some years ago I lived on a small farm in New York State, and one 

 of the inducements held out for hiring it was, that there was a fine apple 

 orchard of choice grafted fruit. This decided — but the trees were in a 

 miserabl}' sickly condition, and the fruit scanty and mean, knotty and 

 wormy. In the fall, a circle was dug around every apple tree, nearly two 

 feet from the crown and over a foot and a half in depth. Dressing from 

 the hog-pen was put into each hole, until within half a foot of the top, and 

 anthracite coal ashes spread over up to the crown. In the spring the trees 

 were pruned, the orchard plowed, oats sown, and the crop of oats was fair ; 

 the trees bloomed more, but fruit was scarce and still poor. That fall, 

 after the leaves had fallen, the trees were scraped — the trunks, branches 

 and boughs — and the grubs scraped off that were in the loose bark, sufficed 

 to feed for two days a hundred fowls, consisting of turkeys, hens and Guinea 

 fowls. The fowls, generally, were in an inclosed place, and corn kept in 

 a trough for their daily use ; as the corn was untouched, and the fowls 

 healthy, my statement can be relied on. Next spring the orchard was a 

 a mass of blossoms, and so beautiful I never wearied looking at it. The 

 trees were so laden with fruit that two of them split in the fork, and a per- 

 son could not walk upright under them. I never saw such quantities of 

 fruit, and fine fruit, too — Bell Flowers, Fall Pippins, Seek-no-Furthers, 

 Summer Pie Apples, and so forth- This was fourteen or fifteen years ago. 



" Pkim Trees — How to treat the Black Knot. — On this place were plum 

 trees in as diseased a condition as the apple trees. The worse ones were 

 cut down and burned, the curculio knots all cut off and burned. In the 

 fall, salt from the pickled meat barrels was put around the trunks, not 



[Am. Inst.] 23 



