AGRICULTURAL. 785 



Pota.sh— Its Value as a Manure for Fruit Trees, Crops, Etc., 

 and in "What it is Found. — The foregoing has sufficiently shown the 

 value of potash as a manure for orchards, so I need only say it is equally 

 valuable for all crops; and now it remains only to show in what it is 

 found. The fact is, nothing grows in the line of fruits nor crops, which 

 does not contain it, and need its return, to keep up a supply. The potash 

 of commerce is made from wood ashes; and grass, grain crops, and conse- 

 quently all straw and weeds, leaves, barn-yard maniire, roots, and fruits of all 

 kinds, contain it; so any one can see that all these things which have passed 

 the point of usefulness as food, etc., should find their way into the compost 

 heap or manure pile, so that at the proper time, they, with the potash they con- 

 tain, may be returned to the soil. 



Pear Culture— Great Success in — Applicable to All Othei^ 

 Fruit.— A Mr. Quinn, at Newark, N. J., has a large pear orchard, in which 

 he had been so successful, the editor of the Horticulturist paid him a visit the 

 last of August, recently, to ascertain by what means he had been more success- 

 ful than others. He found " the ' standards ' were full to overflowing, and the 

 • dwarfs ' so over-abundant as to need support," and continues: " Mr. Quinn's 

 success in pear culture has been due to three points only: 



I. '* He cultivates his orchard constantly, permits no other crop to grow 

 between, and allows no grass nor weeds to be seen, and mulches heavily in 

 time of fruiting. 



II. "He prunes in early summer and winter, carefully, and has thus 

 built up an orchard of splendid shape, healthy limbs, and able to bear any 

 reasonable 'amount of fruit without strain. 



ni. "He takes especial pains with packing, always using clean, new 

 2ialf -barrels, assorts into even grades, and packs solidly and handsomely." 



Remarks. — The foregoing points are all of the utmost importance, in the 

 cultivation of any fruit crop whatever, except perhaps, as apple trees are 

 planted considerably farther apart than pears or phima for g, few years at least 

 other suitable crop may be cultivated between the rows, but never to the injury 

 of the roots, and especially never galling the trees with the whiffletrees. 

 Attention to all the above points and the various items previously given, no 

 one need fail of being a successful horticulttuist, where the market justifies 

 its undertaking. 



Plum Trees. The Well-known Remedies Against the Cur- 

 culios. Insuring a Pull Crop of Fruit.— Ever smce 1833, when an old man 

 by the name of David Thomas told his neighbors to "jar their plum trees and 

 curculios on sheets, and destroy them," a few persons have practiced this plan 

 and have had good crops of plums ; still, very many people will not take this 

 trouble ; let all such put their chicken coops under their plum trees like Daniel 

 Billig does, and get crops that require propping up from their heavy loads ; or 

 like Peter Myers, make a pen of one length of boards under each plum tree, 

 and put two pigs in each pen, who also had to prop his trees to prevent theii" 

 Jjreaking down with plums. These were Illinoia men, and their names ^t 



