72 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



the trunk will not grow so fast in circumference, by divesting 

 them of their leaves or side branches. 



Preparation of land. We have found, following nature in 

 her mode of enriching soil, that the use of vegetable substan- 

 ces, such as muck, peat-earth, leaf-mould and ashes, is the 

 best dressing for the growth of fruit trees. These we should rec- 

 ommend to be composted with barn-yard manure ; hog manure, 

 unless well decomposed, we consider as deleterious to fruit trees ; 

 air-slacked lime, on the generality of our soils, is beneficial, par- 

 ticularly for the pear tree. Old pasture land is better for fruit 

 trees, than that which has been long under the plough, merely 

 because it is less exhausted, and consequently contains more of 

 that decomposed vegetable matter which is so peculiarly fitted 

 to be the food of trees. » 



Planting out. Apple trees from the nursery, are planted out 

 at two and three years from the bud. In setting these, whether 

 seedling or sucker stock, they should not be placed deeper in the 

 ground, than they originally stood in the nursery'; or if the soil 

 is a deep and moist loam, one inch higher; for we believe that 

 deep planting of the apple tree is a serious evil, and many of the 

 disappointments of the fruit grower may be traced to this cause ; 

 it is better to draw up the earth around the tree in the form of a 

 small hillock, than to place them too deep. In shallow planting, 

 the roots will have a horizontal direction given to them, jyhich 

 they will afterwards retain. 



Season for Planting. Respecting the best season for trans- 

 planting the apple tree ; we have, as is most generally practised 

 in our vicinity, set them in the spring ; but we find no objection 

 to autumn planting, provided the soil is dry ; the fall rains set- 

 tle the earth closer to the roots ; but when the soil is clayey, and 

 the weather damp or wet at planting time, it gets into a state of 

 puddle, and rots the roots in winter, and unless the weather is 

 dry in autumn, it should be deferred until the early spring. 



Watering newly set Trees. The practice of watering newly 

 set trees after they are planted, by pouring buckets of water 

 around them, is a bad practice, for, besides settling away the soil 

 from the roots, it often, by being thus poured upon the surface, 

 runs into a paste, which hardens by the sun into a cake, ob- 



