110 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



When the cultivated orchard was read}' to bear, many of the trees 

 which had grown most rapidly were injured by bursting of the 

 bark, and some were wholl}' killed ; but he saved a majority of the 

 trees. To ciieck this excessive rapidity of growth the orchard 

 was laid down to grass. The other orchard was heavily covered 

 with coopers' shavings — hardwood and pine — eight or ten inches 

 in depth, and made a prett}' good growth right along. Porter 

 trees in it give four or five barrels of apples every other j-ear. 

 Trees on the brow of a hill where the gravel shows, and the soil is 

 so poor that grass will not grow there, made a good growth and 

 gave some very good apples. He afterwards discontinued mulch- 

 ing ; but the orchard still gives good apples. He did not wish 

 to be understood as saying that the superiority of this orchard 

 was due to its not being cultivated, and to the other being culti- 

 vated. The condition of the atmosphere is one point to be consid- 

 ered. He means to mulch again. He can use a great variety of 

 material for mulching ; red cedar boughs are one of the best 

 materials. He would not use ha}' or grass, because it burns 

 through, and he thinks trees need something cooling. His own 

 experience taught him that two feet of common gravel over the 

 roots of trees would start them up wonderfully' ; atid he knew a 

 case fifty years ago, where several apple trees, then apparently 

 past their prime, had four feet of gravel filled around them, which 

 renewed their vigor, and they have continued to bear good crops 

 until now. It is good to cover the ground five or six inches deep 

 with peat muck. He gave the results of his experiments only, — 

 the facts but not recommendations, — and would not undertake to 

 sa}' what is the best way to raise trees. 



Samuel Hartwell said that he has an orchard in good fruit soil, 

 and takes a good deal of pride in the trees ; and another in grass 

 land, where the trees are not worth as much as when they were 

 planted He knows a man in Marlborough, who had exceedingly 

 fine apples, when the}' were generally poor, from land in pasture 

 for twent}' 3'ears, but he thought there were few such situations as 

 that. He would not advocate planting apple trees in small patches 

 in pastures, for they would be apt to be neglected. It might do to 

 la}' orchards down to grass once in fifteen or twenty years. In his 

 best orchard he has peach trees planted between the apple trees, 

 three peach trees to one apple tree. The peach crop is destroyed 

 three years out of four, but it pays when he gets one. 



