ON FARMS. 105 



bought a variety of choice plum trees, from which I did not like to 

 use buds and grafts, until I had proved the fruit. This I have ac- 

 complished. One small branch, covered by a bag measuring six and 

 a half by nine inches, contained twenty-one beautiful plums, hanging 

 in one solid cluster, causing the little limb to bend so much beneath 

 its weight, as to require a prop to support it. Upon another, tree 

 (the Moorpuck apricot) I saved eight apricots, under a very small 

 bag. I am training some apricots and other trees in the form of a 

 fan, to make them the more convenient to be covered with the mus- 

 lin. 



I would here mention that I have this summer been using refuse 

 tobacco with good success in driving away the insects. On throwing 

 the dust, or snuff, into the tree, we can see the rose bugs and other 

 insects leave the tree immediately. I also use it around the roots 

 of peach trees for the borer. Until within two or three years, the 

 only manure used by me has been the compost made in the summer, 

 as follows : weeds, potatoe tops, pea and bean vines, or any other 

 vegetable matter, mixed with sand and loam in alternate layers, 

 when for low land ; and with muck, when for upland. This heap 

 would receive the scrapings of the yard, road-side, and also the 

 washings from the house daily, together with some salt and ashes ; 

 this, with the manure from the pen of one hog mixed with it, has 

 been all the manure I have used until 184:6. Then I bought a cow, 

 and in 1847 a horse ; of these, about half of the manure has been 

 used on other lands. 



Although I have been many years doing what capital could have 

 done in much less time, yet I have the satisfaction of building up 

 my little place by my own industry; laboring under very unfavora- 

 ble circumstances, without capital, and without the use of my legs. 

 But now I am in a forest of fruit trees, planted by my own direction ; 

 and the soil drawn upon the roots by own hands, as I sat upon the 

 barrow or box. I can now view the works of the Almighty in the 

 growth of these trees, and the production of their fruit. 



SIMEON L. WILSON. 



Methuen, Sept. 3d, 1849. 

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