156 THE APPLE VULTURIST. 



vicinity yielded scarcely a family supply of fruit, my trees, 

 that had been top-dressed with ashes, bore bountiful crops 

 of smooth fruit. I have in mind several old trees which 

 would yield annual crops of small, gnarly, knotty, rusty, 

 one-sided fruit of little value, until after I had made a port- 

 able pen, about eighteen feet square, around each tree, in 

 which two fattening shotes were kept, about two weeks per 

 tree, until they had rooted up every inch of the turf and 

 destroyed the grass. Then several bushels of unleached 

 wood ashes were scattered around those trees, as far as the 

 roots extended. The result was, bountiful crops of plump 

 and smooth fruit every succeeding season; and I meet 

 with farmers every year who tell me that their apple-trees 

 and Vergalieu pear-trees which stand near their leach, and 

 that have been top-dressed with ashes, yield bountiful crops 

 of luscious fruit ; while the same kind of trees near by, that 

 have not been supplied with ashes, seem to be failing ; and 

 the fruit on them is rusty, one-sided, and very inferior. I 

 once had an Early Harvest apple-tree that always yielded 

 small, knotty, and cracked fruit, until a few bushels of un- 

 leached ashes were spread about it, after which the fruit 

 was superb. 



Bones for Apple-trees. There is no more valuable fer- 

 tilizer for apple-trees on most soils than bones, and the flesh 

 of animals and fish. It has been recorded by reliable au- 

 thority that near the graves of Roger Williams, the founder 

 of Rhode Island, and his wife, there stood a venerable apple- 

 tree which had sent two of its roots into the graves of Mr. 

 and Mrs. Williams. The larger root had pushed its way 

 through the earth till it reached the precise spot occupied 

 by the skull of Roger Williams. There, making a turn, as 

 if going round the skull, it followed the direction of the 

 backbone to the hips. Here it divided into two branches, 

 sending one of them along each leg to the heel, where both 



