NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



167 



may, of course, plant whatever varieties 

 please their fancy, but to the latter class he 

 had some advice to offer. He had no sym- 

 pathy with men who had no conscience in 

 their business so long as it paid in dollars 

 and cents ; who would grow fruit to sell 

 which they knew was unfit to eat ; who grew 

 Kieffer pears, for example, and sold them 

 on their exterior appearance, knowing the 

 buyer would be cheated in his purchase. 



Kieffer pears often do not bring 10 cents 

 a basket in Philadelphia market, for in 

 that city their real value is beginning 

 to be known ; and the worst is not 

 yet, for there are immense orchards of this 

 variety coming into bearing, and short- 

 ly there will be more Kieffer pears than 

 can be sold at a paying price. " I had the 

 first Kieffer pear orchard in Western New 

 York," said he, " and might have been a rich 

 man if I had at the beginning planted it 

 largely, but to-day I have not twenty Kieffer 

 trees, and shall never plant another." He 

 thought perhaps the Kieffer would make a 

 good stock on which to top graft the Bosc. 



PROPER SOIL FOR PLUMS. 



ONE of the frequent mistakes made by 

 by beginners when planting an or- 

 chard is in the choice of soil. They plant a 

 plum orchard on light sand, a soil quite \^r\- 

 suited to the plum, and then when the trees 

 never give paying crops they say plum cul- 

 ture is unprofitable. Probably sandy loam 

 encourages too great wood growth, while a 

 clay soil gives but moderate wood growth 

 and throws the tree into fruit bearing. In 

 some parts of the Niagara district we have 

 a sandy loam at the surface and a clay sub- 

 soil, and on such soils excellent plum cr \y. 

 are produced, the roots of the trees reach ncj 

 down into the heavier ground beneath, thrs 

 affording excellent conditions. In Mr. 

 Woodward's opinion the ideal soil for the 

 plum is rather heavy, with a good propor- 

 tion of clav. and not too wet. Thomas a^l 



vises applications of potash and groand 

 bone to increase the fruitfulness of the pi 'in-, 

 tree. 



SOURCES OP TREE NOURISHMENT. 



WE too little consider the great im- 

 portance of the foliage in tree 

 growth. The great bulk of the carbon 

 which enters into the woody structure of the 

 plant is taken in directly through its leaves. 

 What the stomach and lungs are to animals, 

 those delicate complex organs, the leaves, 

 are to the trees. They, however, act the re- 

 verse of the process of animal breathing, for 

 they purify the air for us, taking from it the 

 carbonic acid gas, and restoring its oxygen, 

 under the wonderful influence of the sun- 

 shine. 



Mr. Woodward emphasized this point, 

 showing the importance of using insecti- 

 cides and fungicides in order to keep tijc 

 foliage healthy and intact, so that it might 

 fully perform its natural functions. In 

 speaking of the mineral elements taken up 

 from the soil, he explained how necessary it 

 was that they should be available, for, as he 

 expressed it, " all plants and trees are soap 

 eaters," and must have their food in a solu- 

 ble form. 



BIO PLUMS PAY. 



SLOWLY but surely we are learning c^e 

 lesson that it does not pay to grow 

 small second class fruit of any kind. We 

 are losers in two ways by it, (i) in the low 

 price received for the second class article, 

 and (2) in the exhaustion of our trees and 

 our soil. This last point is seldom consid- 

 ered, but it is true that it requires more 

 nourishment from the soil and is more ex- 

 haustive to the vitality of a tree to produce a 

 basket of small sized plums or peaches than 

 a basket of large sized ones ; and the reason 

 is that it is the seed that takes the strength 

 of the tree and not the flesh. 



Mr. Woodward put this very strongly at 

 the Stoney Creek meeting. " What T want 



