144 MY FARM. 



soil subject to the dews and atmospheric influences, 

 trees will steal the nourishment ; but grass, with its 

 serried spear-blades covering the ground, steals from 

 the tree. An open fallow with crops in the inter 

 vals, would certainly, if sustained for a *period of 

 years, have contributed far greater thrift than the 

 trees now possess. But an open fallow is no protec 

 tion against the curculio and the apple moth. If 

 there be a protection so simple, and of such propor 

 tions as to admit of its application to a marketable 

 crop, I am not yet informed of it. A few worthy 

 old gentlemen of my acquaintance, catch a few mil 

 lers in a deep-necked bottle, baited with molasses, 

 which is hung from the limbs of some favorite tree 

 overshadowing their pig-pen ; and they point with 

 pride to the results. I certainly admire their suc 

 cesses, but have not been tempted to emulate them, 

 on the extended scale which the mossy orchard 

 would have afforded. 



Some persistent amateurs and pains-taking gentle 

 men do, I know, succeed in making the young fruit 

 of a few favorite plum trees distasteful to the cur 

 culio, by repeated ejections of a foul mixture of 

 tobacco and whale-oil soap, by which the tree has 

 a weekly bath, and an odor of uncleanness. But in 

 view of a large orchard, where apples make a leafy 

 pyramid measured by cubic yards, and cherries carry 



