93 t)N FRUIT TREES. 



two years. I think they are a protection to the pear trees. 

 Of the diseases of the pear tree I have had bnt little know- 

 ledge ; I have experienced the frozen sap bb'ght, but as for a 

 remedy, I leave it for others to propose one. 

 Topsfield, Oct. \0>, 1850. 



EOYAL A. MEKRIAM'S STATEMENT. 



The orchard of young fruit trees which I offer for premium, 

 was set out in 1848, this being the third year from planting 

 out, the fifth from the bud, and the seventh from the seed. 

 The lot of ground contains about two and a half acres, sur- 

 rounded by stone wall, the borders having older trees, which 

 by grafting, have been renovated, four years since. Nothing 

 is allowed to feed upon it ; it has been improved as mowing 

 and tillage la,nd for forty or fifty years, has a southwesterly as- 

 pect of a hill side, the soil a deep black loam, with a full sup- 

 ply of wall stones on the surface. 



Two hundred young trees stand on about two acres ; half] 

 from Lake's nursery, (not the largest growth.) and the other 

 half were natural trees, planted but not worked, all of the same 

 age. The natural trees were grafted last June ; the whole in 

 the lot intended for the Baldwin apple, excepting some failures, 

 which have been supplied with the Danvers Winter Sweet and 

 Hubbardston Nonsuch. As I intend not to admit any feeding 

 off" the ground, I have allowed the trees to branch out low. 



The ground was prepared, by ploughing, in the autumn of 

 1847, in strips of five farrows twenty-two feet apart, and the trees 

 stand in these strips, about the same distance apart. A square 

 of four to five feet was dug the next spring, one foot deep and 

 taken out, and six inches more loosened np in the sub soil. 

 One bushel of pulverized meadow muck was put into the pit 

 mixed with the top soil, and the tree placed in the hole with 

 the roots nicely spread out and covered, adding about two 

 shovels of straw manure near the surface, and covering lightly 

 Avith the remaining sub soil. The ground, from four to six 

 feet square about the tree, has been cultivated and kept free 



