NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



325 



with a protecting row of arbor vitse. All the or- 

 chard groundis cultivatadin strawberries, melons, 

 or something else. There are GOO sheep and 160 

 cattle kept on the farm. 



For the New Ensland Farmer. 



WHAT KILLS THE APPLE TREES? 



BY HENRY F. FRENCH. 



A few mor il r< flections— Death of apple trees— Valley of the 



Connecticut— U. S fast coach— Keene— Claremont — Fran- 



cesio\M] -Chester, &c— How the cold affects the trees. 



My Dear Brown: — New Hampshire would be 

 altogether too pleasant a State "to emigrate /rom" 

 were it not for about seven months of cold weath- 

 er, and some Other trilling circumstances which 

 remind us that perfect happiness on earth was 

 not a part of the great plan of creation. How ad- 

 mirably would all our agricultural schemes work 

 out to our satisfaction, were it not for the unlucky 

 accidents, which are always happening, showiug 

 how 



"The best laid schemes of mice and men 

 Gang aft agley." 



If there would not always come a freshet, or a 

 drought, or an early frost in autumn or a late 

 frost in June, or some unlooked for calamity, sur- 

 prising t i the "oldest inhabitants," what crops of 

 c >rn, and potatoes, and grass, would we not have ! 

 What vines and fig trees of our own would we 

 n it sit under ! 



But alas ! as we set forth in bills in chancery, 

 "the contrary thereof is the truth." Instead of 

 everything "turning up favorable," as Mr. Micaw- 

 ber expected, and revolving like good steady plan- 

 ets in a regular comprehensible orbit, round some 

 central principle, off they dash, like so many com- 

 ets into all sorts of eccentricities, doubtless by 

 S niie rule of "order not understood," putting all 

 human calculation at defiance. As the good Car- 

 dinal Wolsey, following the sentiment of the 

 wisest of men who pronounced all earthly objects 

 and pursuits "vanity and vexation of spirit," well 

 says— 



"This is the slate of man— to-day he puts forth 

 The lender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, 

 And b<;ars his blushing honors thick upon him; 

 The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost. 

 And when he thinks, good easy man full surely 

 His greatness is a ripening, nips his root, 

 And then he falls." 



And so I e nne naturally to my particular sub- 

 ject of remark. The effect of cold on fruit trees. 

 I had on my place at Exeter, last autumn, about 

 one hundred and sixty young apple trees, some 

 set out in the fall of 1846 and some every year 

 since. I think some twenty-five or thirty of them, 

 principally of those set in 1848-'49 and-'50, have 

 their tops destroyed by the cold of the last fall 

 and winter, and I fear that many others are seri- 

 ously injured. Early in April, I noticed in cut- 

 ting oft* small branches near the trunk of the 

 trees, a circle of yellowish wood immediately un- 

 der the bark. I have watched them carefully 

 since. The buds appeared to swell as usual. — 

 Some of them opened partially and some not at all. 

 The bark on the outside looks perfectly fresh and 

 sound, with the exception of two or three trees, 

 from which it has blistered and cracked a little 

 and started off. The wood next the bark is yel- 

 low. 



I have trees at all stages, from those leafless 

 and black, to those in full vigor. Some have a 



few leaves at the ends of the limbs, and some a 

 branch or two in leaf, and the rest bare. I think 

 the best course will be to saw them off near the 

 ground, and graft them with scions cut at the 

 proper season. And in this experiment I feel no 

 great confidence of success, because I find that 

 several of my trees which had been set three 

 years, and then were grafted last spring, are 

 dead, and that they gave the earliest and most de- 

 cided symptoms of injury, the bark and sap wood 

 being yellow, at my first examination of them in 

 April, although the scions grew well and even 

 have thrown out small leaves this spring. In this 

 village, I find quite a number of apple trees in the 

 same condition with mine — most of them which 

 have been from the nursery but two or three years. 

 Since I left you at River Cottage, on the 22d inst., 

 I have made what Queen Bess would call a Pro- 

 gress through a considerable portion of New 

 Hampshire, and have, of course, carefully observed 

 the condition of the fruit trees on my route. That 

 you may have a realizing sense of my opportuni- 

 ties for observation, I will briefly sketch my line 

 of travel before comparing results. From Con- 

 cord, Mass., I took the railroad to Fitchburg, and 

 then up the Cheshire and Sullivan railroads, 

 through the most beautiful and magnificent scen- 

 ery that can be seen in New England on any rail- 

 road line, up the lovely valley of the Connecticut, 

 stopping a day at Keene, Charlestown and Clare- 

 mont, to pay my respects to the Monadnock and 

 Ascutney, and other distinguished characters, who 

 give dignity and grace to that side of New Hamp- 

 shire, to attend to a little worldly business and to 

 note carefully the agricultural condition of the 

 land. 



From Claremont, my business called me to 

 Francestown, and lest our readers who have only 

 travelled in that favored section of New Hamp- 

 shire which lies on the Connecticut, should set the 

 Granite State down as a second Paradise, and feel 

 disposed to repine at their lot for being compelled 

 to live any where else, I must give you a glance at 

 what one goes through on the overland route be- 

 tween Claremont and Hillsborough Bridge rail- 

 road depots. 



I was told at Claremont, that the mail stage 

 would leave at five A. M., for Hillsborough, and 

 was ready for a start at the hour, supposing that 

 the United States mail coach, like time and tide, 

 would wait for no one. 



After waiting patiently one hour, the United 

 States mail coach did come, in the shape of a one 

 horse wagon, containing the driver and two women 

 for passengers. Upon my suggesting that he was 

 late, the driver said there was time enough, and 

 it was soon manifest that the whole expedition, if 

 such a contradiction in terms is allowable, was 

 planned upon the theory, that time was of no par- 

 ticular importance. And so we four in an open 

 one-horse wagon slowly crept out of the beautiful 

 village of Claremont. As we crawled like a very 

 slow funeral procession up, up, up the hills in Uni- 

 ty, the grass seemed less green, the trees showed 

 a thinner foliage, the rocks lay thicker and larger, 

 and it seemed "like a dream when one awakens," 

 to think of railroad trains, and the beautiful vil- 

 lages on the beautiful river I had left. To give 

 additional interest to our position, just as we com- 

 menced the ascent of the longest, bleakest lull on 

 the route, it began to rain, and as I had neither 



