No. 124.] 287 



nothing else will grow — quite a mistake. I look my trees up too 

 early, and lost many the ensuing winter. 



Thus (ar I have been operating upon hired lands. In 1S40 began 

 on the farm where I now live — lands all sadly exhausted — planted 

 two acres, chielly with the mullicaulis and Cantons, by laying the 

 trees whole length in the furrow, manuring them with a cheap com- 

 post, made principally of peat mud properly prepared. They did 

 well, and made an average growth of throe feet — let them stand as 

 they grew, and they all wintered safely. In 1841 planted three acres 

 more, in like manner — season dry, average growth two feet — leit all 

 out as before. 



But the winter of 18-11 and '42 was very open — no snow, frequent 

 and he-.vy rains, with constant freezing and thawing. My ground is 

 ji plain very level, and the water stood and froze in many jjlaces — 

 trees not ridged up with the plough, in summer cultivation, as they 

 should have been on such land, to guard against this danger. The 

 result was that I lost the whole of the three-acre lot, and at least 

 three-fourths of the other. 



To me this was a sad disappointment • and for a few days, in 

 March, 1842, for the^ir;?; and the last time, I had feelings of uncon- 

 querable discouragement creeping through my frame. True, the 

 winter had been peculiar — nothing like it for twenty years. But 

 ju=;t such winters may come again. In this state my first movement 

 was, to despatch some 25 or 30 letters of inquiry to silk-growers in 

 New-England. The mails, in due time, brought me this return, that 

 the injuries of the winter, severe as it was, had been confined to trees 

 planted as mine were, whole^ anrl horizontally eujiat ground^ with- 

 out being ridged up. I was greatly relieved to learn, that in all 

 cases where they had been set deep^ one root in a place, on dry sloping 

 land (or ridged, if flat,) rich enough to make good extended roots the 

 first season, they had gone through the winter safely, pre-eminently 

 bad as it had been. 



Feeling, therefore, that I then knew the worst of the case (as we 

 could not have a more unfavorable winter,) I went directly to work 

 with augmented confidence, to rep^iir my loss. I ploughed up my 

 lands, saving every live tree — sent 35 to 40 miles and bought others, 

 so a*! to plant seven or eight acres, and thus began the silk business anew 

 in 1842, and began right. 



As to trees, I prefer the multicaulis, the large-leaf Canton, and the 

 Asiatic. Managed as indicated in the above details, they are essen- 

 tially safe from the perils of winter anywhere between Canada and 

 the Gulf of Mexico. If not thus managed, they are in danger any- 

 where and everywhere, where it is cold enough for ice to form^ and 

 the ground to freeze. It is not the degree of cold that does the injury 

 in this and similar cases, but freezing and thawing. Everybody knows 

 that a peach tree is more safe on the north than on the south side of 

 the wall, and for the reasons here stated. I would not, therefore, 

 give a dollar for a full insurance on all my trees, if the thermometer 

 ■would just be pleased, in December, to drop down to 20 degrees be- 

 low zero, and stay there until the last of March. 



