ESSEX SOCIETY. 47 



one solid cluster, causing the little limb to bend so much be- 

 neath its weight, as to require a prop to support it. Upon 

 another tree (the Moorpark apricot,) I saved eight apricots, 

 under a very small bag. I am training some apricots and other 

 trees in the form of a fan, to make them the more convenient 

 to be covered with the muslin, 



I would here mention that I have this summer been using 

 refuse tobacco with good success in driving away the insects. 

 On throwing the dust, or snuff into the tree, we can see 

 the rose bugs and other insects leave the tree immediately. 

 I also use it around the roots of peach trees for the borer. 

 Until within two or three years, the only manure used by me, 

 has been the compost made in the summer, as follows : weeds, 

 potato tops, pea, and bean vines, or any other vegetable matter, 

 mixed with sand and loam in alternate layers, when for low 

 land ; and with muck, when for upland. This heap would re- 

 ceive the scrapings of the yard, road-side, and also the wash- 

 ings from the house daily, together with some salt and ashes ; 

 this, with the manure from the pen of one hog, mixed with it, 

 has been all the manure I have used until 1846. Then I 

 bought a cow, and in 1847 a horse ; of these, about half the 

 manure has been used on other lands. 



Although I have been many years doing what capital could 

 have done in much less time, yet I have the satisfaction of 

 building up my little place by my own industry ; laboring 

 under very unfavorable circumstances, without capital, and 

 without the use of my legs. But now I am in a forest of fruit 

 trees, planted by my own direction ; and the soil drawn upon 

 the roots by my own hands, as I sat upon the barrow or box. 

 I can now view the works of the Almighty in the growth of 

 these trees, and the production of their fruit. 



Methuen, September 3d, 1849. 



Grain Crops. 



There was but one claim for a crop of wheat, which came 

 within the rules of the society, — that of Henry Poor, of North 



