34 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



about the end of the fourth year, we did get on so it was pos- 

 sible to drive around with a team. Until two years ago it was 

 entirely impossible to get around with spring wagons, but now 

 we can do it nicely. Men were put at work planting the trees, 

 and they made a wonderful growth without any fertilizer except 

 clover in the late fall. This has made a successful orchard so 

 far as tree growth is concerned. It is planted with peaches 

 and apples interplanted. 



Three 3'ears ago, needing more land, I began at home, and 

 wanting higher land, I bought some fifty acres of rough, partly 

 abandoned pasture land and partly wood land, where the timber 

 had been cut away, and I began clearing that away by taking 

 off the walls, blasting out, digging out, and in every other 

 way getting out the rock as well as getting out the stumps. I 

 used some 100 pounds of dynamite to the acre. It has taken 

 two years, or nearly three, to clear that tract of land, although 

 . some of it was planted the first year, and some of it planted 

 with apples last fall. 



On the adjoining side of the road was a field of 75 acres 

 on a high hilltop, nice fruit land, but covered with chestnuts 

 and other sprouts. These were of about eight years growth. 

 This last summer, I put a number of men in there cutting down 

 this growth. The largest of the trees was perhaps eight inches 

 diameter at the base, the average was probably not more than 

 three. But we cut it all down and left it on the ground, so 

 that it lay there during July, August and September. On 

 this ground was a lot of decayed sticks and brush of the earlier 

 cutting, and the accumulation of leaves for a century or more. 

 When this cutting was all done, along in October, on a still day, 

 when there was practically no air or motion at all, we started 

 a fire around the edges of this field. What wind there was was 

 in the southeast. We started on the west side, across the 

 field, and then around the south side. There was a slow, 

 gentle back fire all the time until we got it started on the south 

 side. Then in a moment a hurricane of wind came and you 

 could not hear yourself think ; but in an hour and fifty minutes 

 from the time the match was applied everything was clear, 

 except the rocks. As I said before, there were a great many 

 leaves on the ground. These leaves had made it impossible 

 for the fire to get through, and after the fire was all gone. 



