THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



141 



manuer. Great care is to be taken to work the 

 mould well in, by hand, that uo hollowiiess be 

 left ; to prevent which, the mould is to be trod- 

 den hard with the foot. Tlie remainder of the 

 mould should be raised into a hillock, round the 

 stem, for the tripple use of affording coolness, 

 moisture, and stability to the plant. A little dish 

 should 1)6 made on the top of the hillock, and 

 from the rim of this, the slope should l)e gentle 

 to the circumference of the hole, where the 

 broken ground should sink some few inches be- 

 low the level of the orchard. All tliis detail may 

 be deemed necessary ; by those, I mean, who 

 have been accustomed to bury the roots of plants 

 in the grave digger's manner ; but I can recom- 

 mend every part of it to those who wish to en- 

 sure success, from my own practice. 



Plants which have been transplanted in the 

 manner here recommended, whose heads have 

 been judiciously lessened, and which have been 

 planted in the manner here desciibed, seldom 

 require any other stay than their own roots. If, 

 however, the stems be tall, and the roots few and 

 short, they should bo supported in the usual man- 

 ner with stakes, or, rather, in the following 

 manner, which is at once sim))le, strong, and most 

 agreeable to the eye. Take a larg'e post and slit 

 it with a saw, and place the parts flat Avay, with 

 the faces to tl»e plaBit, one on each side of it, and 

 two feet apart, and nail your rails upon the edges 

 of the posts. 



There are two ways of grafting. One is upon 

 the stock, after two, three, or four years' growth 

 in the nursery. The manner is, to cut the entire 

 head of the stock off, and tljen to make a cleft in 

 the top and insert the scions in it, covering up 

 the whole crown afterwards with a composition. 

 But this method is attended whh this disadvan- 

 tage, that should one of tlie grafts not take — two 

 are usually inserted, one on each side — the cleft 

 remains open after the composition falls off; and 

 tlius the cavity at the toj), on one side, not being 

 filled up with new wood, becomes a receptacle 

 for moisture, and is very apt to decay. 



The other method, and tlie best, is, to let the 

 stock remain until large enough to be grafted on 

 tlie boughs, namely, until the trained boughs be 

 about an inch in diameter. 



B}' taking a view of the natural enemies of 

 fruit trees, we shall be better able to judge of 

 the art requisite to their prcsei-v.^tion. 



The enemies of fruit trees are, a redundancy 

 of wood ; moss ; spring frosts ; blights ; insects ; 

 an excess of fruit ; old age. 



Some of them are be}ond human reach ; but 

 most of them arc \\ ithin the control of art. 



A redundancy ol" wood is the cause of nu- 

 merous evils. The roots, or rather the jiasturage 

 which supports them, is exhausted unprofitably ; 

 the bearing wood robbed of a jiart of its suste- 

 nance, and the natural life of the tree unneces- 

 sarily shortened, while the supei-fluous wood, 

 which is the cause of this mischief, places the 

 tree in perpetual danger by giving the winds ad- 

 ditional power over it, and is injurious to the 

 liearing wood, by retaining the damps, and pre- 

 venting a due circulation of air. 



The undcrhanging boughs weigh down, espe- 

 cially when loaded with leaves, tlie fruit-hearing 

 branches they are pre} ing upon, giving ihem a 

 drooping habit, or at least preventing their tak- 

 ing, as they ought and otherwtse would, an as- 

 cending direction, while those which gr^w \\i,'h;n 

 the head, are equally injurious in crossing and 

 chafing the profitable branches. 



The outer surface only is able to mature fiuit 

 properly. Every inward and every underling 

 branch ought thereibre to be removed. It is no 

 uncommon sight to see Iwo or three tires of 

 boughs pressing down hard one upon another, 

 with their twigs so intimately interwoven, that 

 even when their leaves are oft", a small bird can 

 scarcely creep in among them. Trees thus neg- 

 lected acquire, throiigh'a want of veiifilation and 

 exercise, a runty, stinted habit, and the fruit they 

 bear becomes of a crude, interior quality. 



The great object of the fruit farmer is to pro- 

 duce a crop every year; and nothing is more 

 likely to obtain it than keeping the trci^s in per- 

 fect health, and endeavoring to prevent tlieir 

 bearing beyond their strength, in a general fruit 

 year. 



Moss is chiefly, perhaps, owuig to the nature of 

 the soil, and cannot be altogether prevented ; but 

 it may, in most cases, be checked, and its evil ef- 



fects in a great measure avoided. I have seen 

 several orchards in which the trees were almost 

 subdued by this vegetable vermin ; some of the 

 trees, with perhaps only one bough left alive, 

 and others entirely killed, and yet suffered to re- 

 main an incumbrance to the ground and a dis- 

 grace to the country. What avails the number 

 of trees, if they are not productive ? How ab- 

 surd, then, to spare any reasonable expense to 

 preserve them in a slate of health and produc- 

 tiveness, or to suffer those to encumber the soil 

 which are past recovery. 



Spring frosts are an enemy against which, per- 

 haps, it is most difficult to guard orchard trees. 

 Dry frosts are observed to have no other effect 

 than keeping the blossoms back ; consequentlj' 

 are frequently serviceable to fruit trees. But wet 

 frosts, namely, frosts after rain or a foggy air, and 

 betbre the trees have had time to dry, are very 

 injurious to the buds. An instance is mentioned 

 in which a flying hazy shower in the evening was 

 succeeded by a smart frost ; that side of the tree 

 against wnich the haze drove, was entirely cut off; 

 while that side of the tree which escaped the 

 moisture escaped the effect of the frost. 



jMuch, however, may depend on the strength 

 of the blossoms. The spring of the year 1788 

 had its frosts, and all hopes of fruit trees were 

 more than once given up ; yet for quantity or 

 quality, taken conjointly, there has perhaps sel- 

 dom been so good a liuit year. But this year, 

 the buds formed, and the blossoms broke forth 

 with unusual vigor, and were enabled by then- 

 own strength to set common enemies at defiance. 

 On the contrarj', in the succeeding spring the 

 blossoms sickened in the bud ; the consequence 

 was, that scarcely an ajiiije succeeded. 



The assistance, thereibre, required from art, 

 in this case, is, by keeiiiiig the trees in a health- 

 fid, vigorous state, to enable them to throw out a 

 strength of bud and blossom, and by keeping 

 them thin of wood, to give them an opportunity 

 of drying quickly, before the frost sets in. 



The term blight is of vague signification* 

 Black iblighting «inds are talked of every where, 

 but no definite idea is any where affixed to the 

 expression. That corn and fruit become iinpro- 

 dui-tive, without any visible cause, and that fruit 

 trees are liable to be infected with insects, are 

 certainly facts. But whether insects be the cause 

 or the effect of blights does not appear to be yet 

 settled. 



With respect to blights, all the assistance which 

 art can render, is to keep the trees in a s^tate of 

 hcalthfulness, and prevent as much as possible 

 an excess of iiuit. As old age cannot be pre- 

 vented, we have only to consider how the pro- 

 ductiveness of trees may be protracted. I have 

 seen healthy bearing apple trees, which now 

 wear their second top. The first tops being worn 

 out were cut oft, and the stumps saw-grafted. 

 Sometimes we see trees so far gone in decay that 

 their productiveness no longer rei>ays their en 

 cunibrance of the soil. How injudicious in such 

 case is the conduct of the ])roprietor, who per- 

 mits such trees to remain year after year indiib- 

 ing and wasting the sid)stance of his soil ! 



From the Genesee Farmer. 

 Proper age of Sheep for lUutton. 



In England, where mutton forms such an essea- 

 tial part of the food of all classes, great attention 

 has been paid, not only to producing .the greatest 

 quantity, but the best quality of nuitton. After 

 years of trials and experiments, it seems now to 

 be generally conceded by the writers of the coun- 

 try, that sheej) of great size and quick growth, 

 siich as the Leicesters, will not gi\e as fine mut- 

 ton as smaller sheep, and those longer in coming 

 to inatin-ity. In other w ords, the profit is on the 

 side of the large sheep ; tlie pleasures of eating 

 are with the smaller, such as the South Down. 

 A writer in a late volume on British Husbandry, 

 says : — 



"" A sheep, to be in high order for the palate of 

 an epicure, should not be killed earlier than when 

 five years old ; at which age the mutton will be 

 foimd firm and succulent, of a dark color, and 

 full of the richest gravy ; whereas, if only two 

 years old, it is flabby, pule and savorless. The 

 graziers, indeed, do not admit this ; and we con- 

 stantly read flaming accounts in the reports of the 

 shows of stock exhibited in various jiarts of the 

 kingdom, of pens of wethers fattened to an enor- 

 mous size in extraorduiary short periods of time ; 



but if any one chooses to ascertain the differ- 

 ence in quality, let him cause an equal weight of 

 one of these young Leicesters, and a five year 

 old South Down, to be stewed down into broth, 

 and he will find that of the former to be little 

 better than greasy water, while the latter, besides 

 its superior degree of nutriment, possesses all 

 the flavor of full grown meat." 



Among the amateur mutton -eaters, wether mut- 

 ton is always considered preferable to that of the 

 ewe, mdess the latter has been spayed, in which 

 case, when kept to five years old and well fat- 

 tened, she is considered by connoisseur^, supe- 

 rior, as mutton, to any thing else. Youatt, in 

 his work on sheep says : — 



" The Leicester will yield more meat with the 

 same quantity of food than any other sheep can 

 do ; but that when fed too high, as is sometimes 

 the case, so much fat is put on that the muscles 

 or lean, seems all absorbed, and the carcass has 

 the appearance and taste of a mass of luscious 

 fat." This propensity to fatten, or to come to 

 early maturity, in some of the improved animals, 

 is a source of great profit to the breeder ; but 

 the consequence to the consumer is, that for mut- 

 ton he gets neither lamb nor mutton ; and when 

 steers of eighteen or twenty mouths old are con- 

 verted into beef cattle, so far as weight is con- 

 cerned, the meat, it is clear, is neither veal nor 

 beef, but a compound of both, and not equal to ei- 

 ther. As a general rule it may be remarked that 

 all animals should be killed while the flesh is 

 in the white state of the young animal, or when 

 it has reached the firm, red fibre of matinity ; 

 a result which a forced growth and fattening does 

 not seem to hasten in the least. 



Effects of Lightning:. 



In the Animks d' Hort. Soc. de. Paris, vol. xxii. 

 1». 120 to 134, an account is given of sixteen trees, 

 which have been struck by lightning in diffierent 

 parts of France, at various periods, from 1813 to 

 1837. The eflTects appear to have been very dif- 

 ferent on diflierent trees. In some, the leaves on- 

 ly were destroyed, in others, the leaves were but 

 slightly injured, but strips of bark appeared to 

 be torn off; in some the branches were broken, 

 and no other injury done ; in some the trunks 

 were split ; and in others, no injiuy was done to 

 the top of the tree, but the roots w ere laid bare, 

 and torn in pieces. In several cases, where the 

 trees were standing near houses, or hay or corn 

 ricks, they seem to have acted as conductors to 

 the electric fluid, and saved the cottage or the 

 corn-stack or hayrick from being struck by the 

 lightning. This was iiarticularly the case where 

 the Lombardy poplar or the silver fir had attain- 

 ed a great height. The authoi- of the article, 

 Vicomte Haricart de Thury, concludes with the 

 tbllowiug advice : — 



1. Travellers and country people, reapers, 

 haymakers, &.C., during the time of a thunder 

 storm, should never take shelter imder detached 

 trees ; more especially inrder a tree which stands 

 at a distance tiom any other, such trees acting as 

 conductors. 



2. To take shelter rather under- a bush, than a 

 tree, and the lower and more spreading it is the 

 better. 



3. Never to take shelter on that side of an ob- 

 ject, from which the wind or the storm comes, or, 

 indeed, in the direction of the wind or the storm. 

 Thus, supposing the storm proceeded in the di- 

 rection of the east and west, then the north and 

 south side of a bush, or other sheliering objects, 

 are to be chosen, and not the east or west side. 



4. In the moment of danger, the safest way is 

 to recline at length on the ground, choosing a fiir- 

 row or ditch, if any should be at hand ; but no 

 time should be lost in searching for a furrow oj- 

 ditch, or tor a bush or a hedge, because the uji- 

 right position, maintained during the search, is 

 incomparably more dangerous tlian the horizon- 

 tal one. 



5. Always to bear in mind that the danger is 

 great in proportion to the shortness of the time 

 which elap.ses between appearance of the light- 

 ning and the noise of the thunder. 



6. Those who cannot afford the expense of 

 lightning conductors to their houses, farm buil- 

 dings and ricks, should plant near them late 

 growing trees such as the pyramidal oak, (Quer- 

 cus peduncnlata pyraniidalls,) the Lombardy 

 poplar, (Populasfestigiata,)the cypress, the larch, 

 the silver fir, the spruce fir, &c.— vSnnafes rf' Horf. 



