348 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 26, 1896. 



BOSTON. 



TO THE EDITOR Ol' THE NEW ENSLAND FARMER. 



WASH FOR FRUIT TREES. 



Dear Sir.. — I was pleased in lookinj;; over your 

 paper of the 5lh ins', to see pot ash, dissolved in 

 water, recommended as a wash for friiit trees. — 

 As the discovery comes from so respectable a 

 source as the late Governor Brooks, I hope it 

 will be g-cnerally used by our farmers. No pcr- 

 .sons need be afraid of its injuring their fruit trees ; 

 but it may be applied wilh the utmost confidence. 

 I have used it for nearly twenty years with great 

 effect. 



I have recommended it to a great many gentle- 

 men, but only a few have used it. Those who have 

 tried it are much pleased with its operation. The 

 reason that it has not been more generally used is 

 that it has been fasliionable to daub the trees with 1 

 lime, clay, manure a,nd otlier compositions, which 

 take two or three years to wash off before the trees 

 •W'ill look nat;iral. When this solution of potash is' 

 applied it has the desired effect immediately. It 

 kills the moss and lice at once ; and the first rain 

 that comes washes the bark perfectly smooth ; and 

 gives it a fair, natural, healthy colour. 



My way of usinpr this preparation is to dissolve 

 9 lbs of potash of tlie first quality in seven quarts 

 of water for the bodies of the trees. It is put on 

 with a white-wash brush. If the limbs are cover- 

 ed with moss or lice, I take a painter's brush, and 

 apply the solution to the moss, &c. with care not 

 to touch the leaves or buds. It may be done at 

 any time of the year, when we arc most at leisure. 

 Once in from two to four years is generally suffi- 

 cient. I have no general rule, liowever, but wash 

 them as often as they appear to need it, which is 

 always when the bark is not smooth. The e.\- 

 pense and trouble of this wash are so small that 

 it is in the power of the poorest man in the state, 

 who owns any trees, to liuve them look handsome, 

 and in a fine thrifty state, if in addition to this he 

 will take pains to have his ground spaded deep, 

 and lie loose round the roots. 



Yours with respect. 

 BENJAMIN WHEELER. 

 Frainingham, May 15, 1830. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



DESTRUCTION OP CATERPILLARS. 



Sir. — The caterpillars, in our neighbourhood, 

 have, this season, ro-appcarcd,in formidable force. 

 What you have recommended, I have repeatedly 

 tried, for their destruction — They, however, still 

 live ; because, I suppose, our All- IVise Creator 

 means the birds shall live. 



Sulphureous gasses have been introduced to their 

 domiciles, to create a pestilence among them. But 

 that grand menstruum, the atmosphere, has quick- 

 ly swallowed up the acid, and rendered harmless 

 the poison. Turpentine, too, tlie greatest of all 

 scourges to insects, his not been spared — Even 

 vifrcurif, if wc may be indulged in a chemical 

 flight, has been invoked. But his wand, though 

 reconciling wrathful serpents, has excited only a 

 momentary alarm among worms. 



Col. Pickering's bnisli is a very ingenious and 

 useful invention ; but not generally known. This 

 worthy veteran, if 1 rightly remember, considers 

 crusliing, or, if tha term be admissible, siinsh- 

 ing tlioni with the hand, where they are as.sembled, 



the readiest and surest mode of e.\torniination 



To me, who am in th" habit of handling a RatHe- 



Snake with nearly the same unconcern, as cmj)ai- 

 ing a worm on my fish hook ; there is nothing dis- 

 gusting nor indelicate in this manner of operation. 

 Darwin has very justly aaid, we must either eat, 

 or be eaten ; we must either destroy, or be destroy- 

 ed. 



I have discovered no better temporary substitute 

 for the Brush than an Old MulUin Sta'.k. While 

 it lasts, this is in some respects preferable ; and it 

 can always be accommodated with a successor. — 

 The spiculffi, or beards, with which its husky part 

 is armed, more readily seize the web, and closely 

 confine the reptiles. So situated, they may, with 

 little labor, be scratched to pieces, or drawn down 

 and crushed under the feet. The e.xperiment is 

 certainly not e.x:pensive, and I wish its utility might 

 be further tested. Yours, respectfully, 



. INVESTIGATOR. 



Pramingham, May, 1326. 



Mr Fessenden — 



My attention has been arrested by several pro- 

 ductions in some of the last numbers of the Farmer 

 relative to the contested theory of the celebrated 

 Mr Knight respecting the limited duration of the 

 apple and pear. Among these we recognize the 

 essays of Col. Pickering, whose pen never fails to 

 carry a peculiar interest and value, and from 

 whose investigations we often derive le.= i as of 

 instruction. It is nevertheless not to be supposed 

 that this gentleman is altogether e.xempt from er- 

 roneous impressions. I am incited by personal feel- 

 ings to offer some observations in reply to his 

 communication in a late number of the Farmer. — 

 Col. P. there accuses me of "a great mistake" and 

 of erroneous notions and absurdities respecting Mr 

 K's theory, altho' I have on no occasion advanced 

 an opinion respecting tlie integrity of the doc- 

 trine in question. In compiling the American 

 Orchardist, I felt it incumbent upon me to promul- 

 gate every sentence of information on the subject 

 which could promise utility to th; public. Accord- 

 ingly I transcribed a few paragraphs containing 

 Mr K's sentiments relative to the gradual degen- 

 eracy, and eventual loss of the old varieties, and 

 his ingenious method of procuring new varieties of 

 the apple and pear ; and this chiefly in the words 

 of the author without a single comment of my own, 

 (page lOtli 1st edit. 2()th 2d edit.) Another point 

 of conduct — which Col. P. seems to consider ex- 

 ceptionable, is that I have quoted from the Dom- 

 estic Encyclopcdi.i : the language of Mr Bucknal 

 as published in the Tninsacliuns of the Society of 

 Arts, for 1802, — " On the Vurieties of Engrafted 

 Fruit Trees." This exhibits the views of Mr B. 

 [ on the subject of the total annihilation of certain 

 varieties of the apple, and however preposterous 

 1 his doctrine may appear, I foel no responsibility for 

 ' any agency in the promulgation, nor have I in this 

 j instance nnmed or even alluded to the peculiar 

 j theory of Mr Knight. I have therefore yet to learn 

 in what particular I have " mistaken" or exhibited 

 I " erroneous notions and absurd interpretations" of 

 Mr Knight's tlieory. 



That I have not misrepresented the views of Mr 

 Bucknal on the subject, will appear from the follow- 

 ing extracts : " Engrafted fruit trees are not per- 

 manent, — they being continued from elongations, 

 and not raised as a repetition of sneds. t^omn years 

 ago, from duo investigation, and thorough convic- 

 tion, I propagated this principle; and it was pub- 

 lished in the 17th volume of the Society's Trans- 

 actions, in the following words : ' All the grafts 

 taken from this first tree, or parent stock, or' any 



of the descendants^ will for some generations 

 thrive ; but when this first stock shall by mere dint 

 of old age, fall into actual decay, annihilation of 

 vegetation — the descendants, however younu-, or 

 in Nv'hatever situation they may be, will gradually 

 decline ; and from that time it would be imprudent 

 in point of profit, to attempt propagating that vari- 

 ety from any of them. This is the dogma which 

 must be received. I do not e.xpect a direct assent 

 neither do I wish it ; for it should be taken with 

 much reserve ; but it is undoubtedly true.' .... 

 The proper conclusion to be drawn from the state- 

 ment in the last paragraph is this — that were any 

 one to put the thought in practice on a full grown 

 hardy crab stock, it would prodiice an excellent 



proof that engrafted fruits are not permanent. 



For if twenty different varieties were placed to 

 gcther, so that each might receive its nurtur- 

 from the same stem, they would gradually die oe 

 in actual succession, according to the age or state 

 of health of the respective variety, at the time the 

 scions were placed in the stock, and a discriminat- 

 ing eye, used to this business, would nearly be 

 able to foretell the order in which each scion 

 would actually decline — should it also happen that 

 two or three suckers from the wilding stock had, 

 been permitted to grow among the twenty grafts , 

 such suckers or wilding shoots will continue, and 

 make a tree after all the rest are gone.' ... ' To 

 place the mture of varieties in its true light, for 

 the information of the public, I must maintain, that 

 the difterent varieties of the apple will, after a 

 certain time, decline, and actually die away, and 

 each variety, or all of the same stem or famil.-, 

 will lose their existence in vegetation.' . . . 'With- 

 in tlie last twenty years I have travelled manv 

 hundred miles, and conversed with the most intel- 

 ligent men in each county ; and I now want to 

 convince mankind, for no other reason than be- 

 cause it is their intorest so to believe, th:'.t there 

 is in creation an order of beings {engraft '.-d fruits) 

 so formed, that we have the power of multiplying * 

 a single variety, to whatever number of trees we 

 please ; that the first set arises from a small seed; 

 that the next and descendant sets are propagated 

 by engraftings, or from cuttings, layers, &ic. ; and 

 although these trees may amount to millions, yet 

 on the death of the primogenious or parent stock, 

 merely from old age or nihility of growth, each in- 

 dividual shall decline, in whatever country they 

 may be, or however endued with youth and licalth. 

 I say they shall gradually begin to decline, and in 

 the course of time or of centuries, to those who 

 would prefer that expression, the tvhote variety 

 will scarcely have a single tree remaining to show 

 what the fruit was." 



I have thus endeavoured to vindicate myself 

 against the allegations of Col. P. witliout a desire 

 to interpose between that venerable gentleman 

 and the inielUgent writer in the Essex Register 

 witli whom he is at issue. 

 1 JAMES THACHER. 



I Plymouth, May 16, 1826. 



PEACHES. 



Mr Fessende.n — I noticeii in your paper of 

 May .'ith a communication with the sign iture of 

 " A Farmer.'" remarking that we were to have no 

 peaches this year — or to quote his own language 

 " How is it that wc are to have no peach fruit 

 this year .' On examining my trees yesterday, I 

 am sorry to find a tola! failure. No blossoms have 

 yet appeared." 

 ' 1 am liappy, Mr Editorj to inform yo\i, that on 



