THE GENESEE FARMER. 



S9 



dense, the growirig tops and roots liavinj:: completely 

 filled up the spaces allotted to each. tSiich orchanls 

 should be thinned out, grubbing up every other 

 row running north and south, and liberally manur- 

 ing the whole ground ; grafting over such trees- 

 •without thinning will not do. 



There are also many a])ple orchards whi'jh never 

 have paid and never will pay for the ground they 

 occupy. If the soil is col'd, wet, and with a hard 

 pan bottom, no amount of nianuriug, or grafting, or 

 pruning can ever make them valuable. The orig- 

 inal selection of a location was not good, and graft- 

 ing on other varieties wiil not remedy the evil. In 

 such cases, plant a young orchard immediately 

 upon a piece of rich land with a dry, gravelly, or 

 otherwise well-draii:cd subsod, and proceed to make 

 experiments upon your orchard upon the wet land 

 with drain tiles, and communicate the result to the 

 Gtncfee thinner. If you succeed iu producing 

 uniform crops of fair apples upon such a soil, the 

 experiments wiil make your name immortal. 



There is a limit to the durability of apple or- 

 chards, and some of the old ones have already 

 passed beyond the time when to graft them 

 would be of any use, and manuring or cultivating 

 them is scarcely worth while, the fruit being poor 

 at best. As soon as the places of these declining 

 patriarchs can be supplied, let them be cut down, 

 unless their shadows are precious to the porch or 

 the walk, they are not worth preserving. 



The passing away of these old trees is sure proof 

 that we must continually plant new ones if we and 

 our children would always have some trees in their 

 prime, and no improvement of old orchards should 

 prevent the planting of young ones to supply the 

 present and rapidly increasing demand for good 

 fruit. 



It is surprising that intelligent men do not pay 

 more attention to the condition iu which their or- 

 chards are maintained. There are many farms upon 

 which the farmer receives more annual profit from 

 a single tree of the Rhode Island Greening than from 

 an acre of grain ; and yet he does not take the 

 trouble to see that his trees are properly managed 

 or pruned, paying least attention to the most pro- 

 fitable part of the farm. This is a degree of folly 

 which we are persuaded will not last forever in this 

 age of newspapers. H. E. H. — Rochester, Jan. 14, 

 1857. 



HORTICULTURAL OPERATIONS FOR FESRUARY.' 



The greater portion of this month will be taken up 

 in making preparations for the coming busy month 

 of March. 



Hot-bed frames and sashes should be brought out, 

 ■where not done last month, and washed c^ean; the 

 broken glass, if any, taken out and replaced by whole 

 squares. Let the putty be made good, in every part ; 

 and all carefully painted. I have always observed 

 that where a square of glass is cracked aiad the putfy 

 in bad condition, though thought to be sufficiently 

 strong to last through another season, it is sure to 

 drop out just at the very worst time, — when the 

 young and tender plants are most tender, and when 

 ■we have the worst weather to contend with; such as 

 cold, cutting, sleety, wet and windy weather, (latter 

 part of March, and beginning of April,) and, conse- 

 quently, when we have to use the greatest quantity 



of heavy wet litter, or garden mats to cover the glass 

 with, at night; the throwmg on and pulling off, of 

 which, is usually the cause of these cracked squares 

 being pulled out. 



IJow rarely do we see proper, and sufficent cover- 

 ing for hot-bed frames and pita ^Vllere there is one 

 gardener who has oiled canvass or tarpaulin to cover 

 his glass with, there are an hundred wlio have nothing 

 better than garden mats or stable litter, llov.evc •, 

 when we have not tarpaulin or straw mats, we niu. t 

 use the next best thing, which i.s, perhaps, stable littc. 

 Its advantages, over mats, are that we can put on 

 thicker covering; the straws, being hollow, contain 

 a body of air wliich acts as a non-conductor, althouj^h, 

 when saturated with snow and rain, a very jjoor one 

 I must confess. lis disadvantages are that v.e caunct 

 use litter without having a great deal of dust and 

 dirt, which shakes through the litter to the glass, and 

 is sucked in the laps and under the putty, there to 

 absorbe and retain water, which causes leakage, and 

 rots out the putty. Mats are clean, and, when dry, 

 can be rolled on and off with httle trouble; but in 

 wet weather they absorb every drop of water, that 

 falls upon them, and then lie so close together, and 

 to the glass that they are almost useless by conduct- 

 ing the heat out of the bed. 



Another grievance is that they have to be hung up 

 to dry every time they get wet; and come out at 

 night, sometimes frozen as stiii' as boards, and all 

 shapes the straightning of which breaks the mats and 

 glass too. With the tarpaulin we can throw on a 

 little dry litter to be covered by it, which keeps tl;e 

 litter dry, and admits of a stratum of air, in (than 

 which there is no better non-conductor known,) be- 

 tween the glass and the tarpaulin. If the tarpaul- 

 in be oiled, or tarred, once a year, it will last many 

 years. 



About the middle of the month, prepare for mak- 

 ing hot-beds; this will be early enough, except where 

 there are brick forcing pits and abundance of manure 

 at command, for it is very, difficult to keep up a suf- 

 ficient heat in a common hot-bed before this time. — 

 Let the manure be well shaken and mixed, and thrown 

 into a heap to ferment. In five or six days turn it 

 again, and, if dry, water it. Let it be iu some shel- 

 tered place, it covered with boards, it will ferment 

 more regularly. 



The pruning of hardy vines should now be attended 

 to, where not done sooner. When left later than 

 this month, they are apt to bleed, and, though it may 

 not be permanently injurious, it cannot do any good, 

 and may as well be avoided. 



Gooseberry trees may be pruned. Gooseberries 

 bear upon the young, as well as the old wood. All 

 the little twiggy pieces in the body of the tree, should 

 be cut out to one or two buds in the length which 

 will form permanent fruit spurs. Where the trees a?e 

 wanted to increase in sizf), the leading shoots of young 

 wood can be cut back to five or six inches in lengi! . 

 Any decayed branches should be cut clean out, ai d 

 young ones trained iu their places. 



Currants may be pruned as above, but they bear 

 mostly upon wood of two years growth or more; all 

 the fruit-bearing spurs, upon the main branches, 

 therefore, must be carefully preserved; to increase 

 them, set out the young wood on the main branches, 

 to one or two buds in length. Currant trees should 

 always be trained on a stem, at least one foot in 

 height, and the main branches kept about one foci 



