ORCHARDS. 81 



I tliiak I shall gather at least twenty barrels of apples from 

 the trees this present season, which will be as many as I could 

 expect. In regard to the treatment of insects, I remove cater- 

 pillars as soon as discovered ; have never been troubled with 

 borers, and seldom with insects of any kind, except that the 

 present season a large number of the " Palmer "Worms " could be 

 found on almost every tree ; they seemed to come all at once 

 and to disappear in the same way; they have not as yet injured 

 the trees, but we think their presence another season will be 

 more disastrous, as we anticipate them in larger numbers. I 

 know of no prevention. 



NoKTH "NVoBVEX, Sept. 27, 1853. 



Luther Adams' Statement. 



I send you a statement concerning my apple and peach 

 orchard that you had the goodness to examine. My land is a 

 sandy soil wdth a coarse, gravelly subsoil, full of stones, and 

 sloping to the west ; it was pasture land planted one year with 

 potatoes, and one year with corn, and well manured. The 

 trees were set in the spring of 1847, two years from the bud, 

 and raised in my own nursery. The holes were dug two feet 

 deep, and broad enough to receive the roots without bending 

 them ; the soil laid one side and the subsoil the other ; soil 

 thrown into the bottom and the trees set in the soil, making no 

 use of the subsoil, with care not to have the trees stand too 

 low. It contains ninety-seven apple trees and one hundred and 

 six peach trees; the apple trees stand thirty feet each way, 

 the peach in the centre of the square ; the peach covering more 

 ground than the apple trees. I have kept the land cultivated, 

 spreading on about twelve cart-loads of green manure from the 

 barn cellar every spring. I cultivate corn, beans, potatoes, 

 squashes, and ruta-bagas. I trim my appl6 trees every spring, 

 believing that it does not make much difference when you trim 

 after the tree has done growing in the fall until it starts in the 

 next spring. I do not like to wound a tree when it is growing, 

 for I think I have seen its bad effects. I washed my trees in 

 1851 and in 1853, with potash water, one pound to a pailfid of 

 water. 



TowNSEND, Sept. 12, 1853. 

 11* 



