38 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



is to make the soil lighter, and to cause moisture to be absorbed 

 more readily, and retained better. But the soil of an orchard 

 should be fertile or be made so by the application of a suitable 

 fertilizer — one that is readily soluble so as to feed the crop the first 

 year. For fruit-bearing trees, the fertilizer should have a larger 

 proportion of potash than for other crops. He recommended the 

 following proportions : four hundred pounds nitrate of soda, eight 

 hundred pounds muriate of potash, and eight hundred pounds of 

 bone phosphate, thoroughly mixed and spread under and around 

 the trees on each acre, every year, for if your orchard gives you a 

 crop of apples, you are in debt to it. It is natural for a tree to 

 bear fruit, and to make it bear a crop every year it is necessary 

 not only to thin the fruit early each season to prevent over-bear- 

 ing, but also to feed it as above every year. Under such treat- 

 ment even the Baldwin apple is now made to bear a crop of fruit 

 every year. One annual bearing Baldwin tree stands where street 

 wash regularly runs over the ground. 



Ip relation to planting apple and peach trees in the same orchard, 

 Mr. Hoyt said that he would not advise it, as the apple will bear a 

 richer soil than the more tender peach, and the latter does better 

 apart from the other. The peach has lived and been fruitful fifty 

 years in past times, and the speaker believed it would do this 

 again sooner or later. 



Mr. Hoyt being requested to advise as to the best selection of 

 phosphates replied that, other things being equal, the only point 

 to settle is, which is the cheapest. 



How to deal with borers, he said, was a question that permitted 

 but one answer. Eternal vigilance is absolutely necessary. 

 Watch the trees every year, and twice a year, and exterminate 

 the pest on discovery of its presence. 



For the black- wart, after cutting out all affected wood, apply to 

 the cut surface- — but not on the bark — kerosene emulsion, or 

 cover with salt and bind it on. 



The proper time to plant forest trees, and apple and peach 

 trees, depends on circumstances. First, there is a great difference 

 in soils ; where the soil is damp, or more moist than that word 

 implies, he would not set any trees in the fall. He would not 

 reconnnend setting peach trees anywhere in the fall. Besides 

 peaches, the quince and plum should always be set in the spring, 

 for if set in the fall they will have to resist at once both the shock 



