MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 137 



season I sowed it with barley close around the trees, and there- 

 by lost nearly all the growth of the trees that year. The two 

 following years I planted it with potatoes, manuring in the 

 hill. 



In 1847 I laid it down to grass, hoeing a place as large as a 

 cart wheel round each tree, and putting on about two bushels 

 of yard manure to each, hoeing it in, and keeping the earth 

 light by three hoeings in the season. This practice I have 

 continued ever since. The trees, which are Baldwins, Hub- 

 bardston Nonsuch, York Russet, Yellow Bellflower, and Indian 

 apple, have been kept pruned, and are just beginning to bear. 

 I have never been troubled with insects. 



Lincoln, Aug. 30th, 1850. 



William Buckminster^ s Statement. 



My peach orchard of one acre, contains two hundred trees. 

 They have grown quite as thriftily this year as trees ought to 

 grow, yet no manure has been applied to them since they were 

 first set. But the ground has been constantly in cultivation, 

 though nothing more exhausting than white beans have been 

 planted among the trees. 



To keep off the peach tree borer, I applied last year and this, 

 a shovelful of leached ashes to each tree, and no gum can be 

 seen issuing from the roots of the trees, but all of them are 

 healthy. 



I have trimmed these trees but very little, for I prefer to have 

 the branches come out near the ground. The tree is much 

 less exposed to the winds, and the fruit is gathered more easily. 

 Grass and weeds, too, are kept down, when the limbs shade the 

 ground. Grass may be permitted to grow for one year at least, 

 and for two, if pigs run among the trees, as they have done 

 among these for two weeks. 



These trees have three years' growth, and most of them are 

 natural growth from stones taken out of orchards that have not 

 been budded. 



Framingham, Sept., 1850. 

 18 



