MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 159 



My peach trees, one hundred and twenty in number, were 

 set in the spring of 1847 ; cuhivation, the same as the apple 

 trees. 



My pear trees, forty in number, were set in 1838, and inter- 

 mediate years to 1847 ; their cuUivation has been similar to 

 that of the apple tree, except a more free use of manure. 



Lincoln. 



/, W. Brown's Statemeiit. 



I purchased the lot of land where my orchard now stands, 

 containing six acres, in the autumn of 1846. 



It was a worn out, fallow field, — had not been ploughed for 

 fifteen years, and at the time of purchase, afforded pasturage 

 for one cow only a part of the season. The soil is generally a 

 warm, sandy, or gravelly, yellow loam, with a sandy, or grav- 

 elly subsoil. The close of each warm season usually found 

 this field an almost barren plain. 



The field is now well fenced. It has been twice ploughed, 

 and a part of it has been cultivated and manured lightly. The 

 next year, the whole field will be well cultivated. 



The holes for the trees were dug of circular form, six feet in 

 diameter, and eighteen inches deep, in the fall of 1846. 



Owing to the warmth and lightness of the soil, I set the 

 trees in rows, twenty-four feet apart each Avay, they should 

 have been thirty feet apart. 



The trees were set in the spring of 1847, and this is the 

 third summer of growth in their present situation. At the set- 

 ting, the holes were partly filled, by spading in around their 

 sides ; the trees were then set, and the holes were filled and 

 levelled up with a mixture of peat, loam, unleached ashes and 

 compost from the barn yard. (Sixty ox-cart loads of peat, 

 thirty horse cart loads of compost, and one hundred and sev- 

 enty-five bushels of dry ashes. ) 



The trees have been kept hoed, and have each year received a 

 top-dressing, composed of a mixture of peat, compost and leached 

 ashes. They have received but one wash, and that this sea- 



