APPENDIX. 



A. 



THE BEAEING TEAE. 



This arises simply from tlie tendency in the apple, when left to itself, to bear 

 BO large crops one year as to require the next year to recover sufficient strength 

 to bear again. This becomes a Icind of fixed constitutional habit in a given 

 variety, and is continued by grafting, so that whole orchards bear one year, and 

 are unfruitful the next, with great regularity. On the other hand, certain sorts, 

 like the Belle-fleur and Holland Pippin, which bear but moderate crops, in 

 strong soils bear every year. 



The habit itself may be corrected or changed, when the tree or orchard is 

 young, by picking off all the fruit that sets the first year the tree bears a good 

 crop, thus forcing it to take its bearing year the next season. — A. J. Downing. 



B. 



CAUSE OF DIMINISHED FEETILITY. 

 The first colonists of Virginia found a country the soil of which was rich in 

 alkalies. Harvests of wheat and tobacco were obtained for a century from one 

 and the same field, without the aid of manure ; but now whole districts are 

 converted into unfruitful pasture laud, which without manure produces neither 

 wheat nor tobacco. From every acre of this land there were removed in the 

 space of one hundred years 1,200 lbs. of alkalies, in leaves, grain, and straw. 

 It became unfruitful then because it was deprived of every particle of alkali 

 which had been reduced to a soluble state, and because that which was ren- 

 dered soluble again in the course of a year Avas not sufficient to supply the 

 demands of the plants. . . . It is the greatest possible mistake to suppose 

 ttiat the temporary diminution of fertility in a soil is owing to*the loss of vege- 

 table mold. It is the mere consequence of the exhaustion of the alkalies,— 

 Liebig. 



0. 



EEMOVING LAEGE TEEES—" BALLING." 

 Late in the autumn, dig a circular ditch at a distance of from two to five feet, 

 according to its size, from the trunk of tlic tree, and from eighteen to thirty 

 inches deep, smoothly cutting off all the lateral roots close to the central mass 

 of earth. This ditch must be kept free from snow, until the inclosed ball con- 

 taining the roots of the tree is tiioroughly frozen. "With iron bars and levers 

 force up this circular mass of eartli, and place two or more strong skids under 

 it. By means of a strong set of pulleys, with oxen attached, if necessary, the 



