170 THE APPLE CULTUttlST. 



saving and applying valuable fertilizing material for a few 

 years, will see a surprising improvement in his bearing 

 trees, grape-vines or grass -land, where such substances 

 were distributed. Better manure can not be desired. Be- 

 sides this, the cost of it is comparatively nothing. 



Under-draining old Orchards. I have met with a large 

 number of old orchards in New England, New York, Ohio, 

 and other States, many of the trees of which do not yield a 

 crop of any value, and never have, on account of the excess 

 of water in the soil. And yet the proprietors of those 

 trees are looking to some climatic influence, or to some 

 " east-wind," or to a degeneracy in the variety, as the cause, 

 beyond man's control, to which the failure of fruit must be 

 attributed, when the cause is purely local ', and might have 

 been removed years ago. Old apple-trees will not flourish 

 where there is an excess of water. In many instances, we 

 have observed that apple-trees standing where the soil was 

 kept thoroughly charged with water late in autumn, during 

 the winter, and for two months in the spring, would be 

 so seriously injured that they could not recover during the 

 summer. When the pores of the soil are all filled with 

 water, week after week, instead of warm air, an apple-tree 

 can not thrive luxuriantly, nor yield satisfactory crops of 

 fruit, until the land has been under-drained. (See p. 61.) 



Management of Dying Trees. It would be folly and labor 

 lost to attempt to rejuvenate an old, dying apple-tree. There 

 is a limit to the duration of apple-trees, as well as to human 

 life, so that, after an apple-tree has been dropping a branch 

 here and there for several years, and the body has begun to 

 decay, we can not make a profitable tree of it, any more 

 than an old, blind, lame, and foundered horse can be re- 

 juvenated. The very best way to treat such trees is to 

 dig them up, and start another tree of some valuable varie- 

 ty where the old one stood. Direct the digger to excavate, 



