60 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Our first venture was with about two hundred trees on a high, 

 dry, sand}' hill-side, sloping to the west down into a rich, peat- 

 bottom field in a high state of fertility. A small portion of the 

 field had a warm, southerly slope, and, having previously been 

 used for early strawberries and garden vegetables, had been well 

 enriched with stable manure, and was in fact a warm, rich garden, 

 such as may be found close to man}' a New England home. We 

 had our doubts at the time about risking trees in such a place, as 

 well as going too near the bottom of the hill bordering on the rich, 

 peat land, but, wishing to have a given number of rows and all 

 complete across the field, we planted so as to cover the whole of 

 the warm and rich sheltered spot referred to, and also so that a 

 portion of two rows — about fifteen trees in all — came down very 

 close to the low land border where their roots could reach out 

 into the rich, heavy soil and draw their nutrition from it. 



In manuring the field, with the exception of the two portions 

 mentioned as being already rich, we applied fine ground bone at 

 the rate of half a ton to the acre, and then, on one half of the 

 whole field muriate of potash at the rate of about five hundred 

 pounds per acre, doing this for the purpose of testing the value of 

 potash as a special fertilizer for the peach and as a preventive of 

 the yellows — that disease of which we all see and hear so much and 

 3-et actually know so little that I hardly dare mention it here 

 today, well knowing that in an}' discussion that may take place, 

 there will be almost as many opinions as speakers. Ye^ as prog- 

 ress toward truth is made by difference of opinion, full and free 

 discussion of practical points will at least tend to divert us from 

 mere theories and so, in time, put us on the right track, and good 

 will come of it. 



Trees that had previously been annually and heavily banked 

 with wood ashes^to keep out the borers had been more free from 

 this disease than those not so protected ; hence I concluded that 

 possibly potash had something to do with their extinction, and not 

 being able to secure the ashes muriate of potash was substituted, 

 spread on the ground around the tree four to six feet away after 

 planting. A fine, healthy growth was made by all the trees the 

 first season ; little, if any, difference could be seen on the por- 

 tions where the potash was applied and those where it was not, 

 except that on the two rich portions of the field the growth was 

 very much more rapid, so that at the end of the first yeav the 



