just as would the growth of a fat colt if sudden- 

 ly put on short allowance, or a calf which had 

 sucked from the wliolo udder, when restricted 

 to one teat ; and the farmer, good, easy man, 

 wonders how his orchard should stop growing ! 

 Starvation generates disease, just as vermin are 

 bred in the filth and rags of the lazar. So arhor- 

 ical poverty and sickness will contract moss 

 which at once consumes the substance of the 

 tree, and offers a ready shelter for the thou- 

 sands of insects on the lookout for exactly such 

 places to deposit their eggs, the young of which, 

 when hatched, again find theiruatural food in the 

 fruit. A ti-ee, like everj-thing else m nature, 

 when it comes into existence, should be .suppli- 

 ed with food and kepi groicing, if j'ou wish it 

 to attain its full natural growth and fruitfulness. 

 The truth of this is illustrated in a thousand 

 ways, for Nature is prodigal in her otfers of m- 

 etruction, if man, whose natural and sluggish 

 tendency is to repo.se, would only keep his 

 eyes open. What science does she not illus- 

 trate ? For one instance, suppose a stalk of 

 com, under favorable circumstances, to reach 

 great size, and to have ears that commence 

 with a large number of rows, promising a pro- 

 digious yield ; yet if there comes a severe 

 drouth, the ground bakes, the roots are check- 

 ed, and the air and the eai'th both become dry, 

 and you will find that the ear of com which had 

 started with, we will sa}% 12 rows will contract 

 to ten, and if these distressing circumstances of 

 earth and atmosphere continue, finding that it 

 cannot carry out its second undertaking, it will 

 contract the number of rows again to eight ; 

 but, strange to say, it will always preserve an 

 even number. All this we remember to have 

 seen exemplified in corn exhibited at Wilming- 

 ton, Delaware. Some have contended for proof 

 of i/itelligcnce or volition m the roots of a plant 

 from its selecting food adapted to its growth, 

 and the rejection of that which would be dele- 

 terious. This alteration more than once of the 

 design of the com, to produce a certain number 

 of rows, and its invariable adherence, under all 

 circumstances, to an even number, looks yet 

 more like volition or instinct. But let us admire 

 the mysteries that v^e cannot penetrate and ex- 

 plain. Providence never designed that we should 

 know everything at once, but wisely stimulates 

 inquiry by the lively hope and ambition of new 

 discoveries. In the midst of the deserts of Af- 

 rica, when on the eve of perishing, the ill-fated 

 MuNGO Park shook off the despair under which 

 he says he was fast sinking unto death, by see- 

 ing in the midst of that desert a delicate spear 

 of moss, at which he said if even that was not 

 beneath the care of Providence, why might he 

 not yet hope to be saved ? B ut to return to 

 our subject. If plants of com require a certain 

 distance within which to grow, and to have the 

 (478) 



intervening space manured and pulverized, why 

 should not trees require the same advantages in 

 jtroportion to their size. True, the tree de- 

 mands not, neither does it get the frequent stir- 

 ring of the laud which is indispensable to com 

 while growing, because its roots are stronger 

 and its natural life is longer ; but the tree does 

 require the land to be well manured and well 

 broken, at least wlien it is planted ; and it is 

 onlj^ when the planter is prepai-ed to ofier it that 

 indispensable guarantee of life, growth, and 

 fruitfulness, that he ought to take its life and 

 managery into his keeping. If he cannot thus 

 care for 100, let him plant 50, and if not .50, let 

 him plant 10. Let him, in a word, in this case 

 and all others, embark in nothing which he does 

 not v^ean to do icell, and, thank God and the 

 progress of light and knowledge, the time is 

 coming when the ignorant and slovenly farmer 

 will lose caste and character as surely and as 

 much as the pettifogger is contemned at the bar, 

 among learned counselors, and the demagogue 

 despised in executive offices and the halls of 

 legislation, by true patriots and statesmen. 



All this have we written without intending to 

 do more than barely say a word in recommenda- 

 tion and support of the following essay, Vihich 

 we find in the September number of the Eng- 

 lish Farmers' Magazine. The reader \ri\\ tliink 

 that the comment has anticipated, without so 

 well expressing the meaning of tlie text. Bet- 

 ter than either, however, w-ill he find the ex- 

 tract from Mr. Downing's valuable book on 

 ' The Fruit and Fruit Trees of America,' to which 

 it did not occur to us to revert, until we had 

 written to the end of the preceding paragraph. 

 We hope he will excu.se us for oflering to the 

 reader a draft, which, large as it is, will only 

 stimulate his thirst for more, and i)rompt him 

 to take, at the original fountain, the book itself, 

 from which we have drawn the chapters which 

 follow the Engli.sh Essay, for his in.stn.iction. 



PREPARATIONS FOR PLANTLNG. 



As the sea.son approaches when trees of all 

 kinds may be planted with every prospect of 

 success, under circum.stances most favorable to 

 their success, it has been judged fitting to make 

 some allusion to the preparation of land in gen- 

 eral, refen'ing to a future opportunity any notice 

 of the .soil peculiarly suitable to each. 



Trees, agriculturally considered, are great en- 

 emies to the crojis of tlie farm ; and, as such, 

 many writers of the day have successfully la- 

 bored to .show that, however ornamental they 

 may be in themselves, and to the landscape of 

 the country, their existence, in hedge-rows 

 above all, is an evil, unless it be in exposed sit- 

 uations, where they may act as screens of de- 

 fence against the violence of prevailing winds. 



There are two or three writers of recent date 

 whose works will be referred to, and recom- 

 mended as guides to readers interested in the 

 culture of ornamental and timber trees. These 

 writers are Mr. Withers, of Holt, Norfolk, who 



