NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



should be neglected ; for there is always ready 

 sale for it. The plants are easily grown from 

 cuttings, and soon come into a bearing state. 

 They may be planted six feet apart in the 

 row, with rows ten feet apart. The trees are 

 quite long-lived, and usually healthy and 

 hardy. The worst enemy to the (juince is the 

 borer, which soon destroys the tree if allowed 

 to work. The same plan may be adopted for 

 the destruction of the borers in the (juince as 

 in the apple. Fruit-growers having a soil 

 suitable for this fruit should certainly devote 

 time and spa^e to its cultivation; for, at the 

 prices for which it has been selling, no fruit 

 will pay a better profit. — Am. Jour. Horti- 

 culture. 



PliOUGHINQ ORCHABDS. 



I have a young orchard that I set out eleven 

 years ago and cultivated it nine years and then 

 laid it down to clover. This spring I ploughed it 

 and found that the roots of the trees had literally 

 filled the ground, so that by ploughing only about 

 four inches deep, I ploughed off the roots by thou- 

 sands, whieh I think must be a great injury to the 

 trees. Now what am I to do ? The fruit books and 

 agiii-ultural papers recommend cultivating or- 

 chards as a corn or potato field, but I am confident 

 that it will ruin mine if I continue to plough the 

 land. £. L. 



Long Plain, Mass., May 13, 1868. 



Remakks. — The apparent superabundance of 

 self-sustaining and re-producing power in both 

 vegetables and animals is one of the most 

 wonderful provisions in nature. Compared 

 with the multitude of blossoms which fruit trees 

 put forth every spring, how small is the crop 

 that matures ! Prof. Owen estimates the pos- 

 sible increase of a single aphis, or plant louse, 

 in the ten generations of which it is capable 

 during a single season, at the incomprehensi- 

 ble number of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000! 

 In fact, naturalists tell us that "all organic be- 

 ings, without exception, tend to increase at so 

 high a ratio, that no district, no station, not 

 even the whole surface of the land or the whole 

 ocean would hold the progeny of a single pair 

 after a certain number of generations." The 

 productive power of a single thistle, mullein, 

 or turnip is equally wonderful. Do not the roots 

 of trees possess something of this exuberance of 

 life .•* We trim their branches not only with- 

 out injurj', but with the most beneficial effects ; 

 may not the roots be "purged" without more 

 fatal results ? That too much may be removed 

 from either top or root no one can doubt ; but 

 if all the roots of "E. L.'b" trees could be ex- 

 posed to view perhaps he would see that the 

 "thousands" which were broken by his four- 

 inch furrow would bear but a small proportion 



to the whole ; possibly no larger than that of 

 an ordinary trimrping to the whole amount of 

 the branches. The question of the expediency 

 of ploughing orchards is one on which men 

 differ.' They differ also as to manuring, trim- 

 ming, &c. Trees in grass on our old farms 

 seldom bear well. Top-dressing is advised by 

 some. Others think we ought to take a hint 

 from nature's process in the woods, and mulch 

 our trees. Others still keep them under culti- 

 vation, — some using a plough, others the cul- 

 tivator or harrow. 



One of the most successful orchardists in 

 New England, Capt. Geo. Pierce, of Arling- 

 ton, Mass., near Boston, in reply to a ques- 

 tion as to the secret of his success, said, "I 

 prepare and till my ground well, keep off 

 and destroy caterpillars, canker-worms, web- 

 worms, prune my trees myself, &c. ; In brief, 

 I comply with all the conditions, so far as I 

 know them, of a good apple crop, and I get 

 one annually, while my neighbors, failing to do 

 so, have become discouraged, and are, and have 

 been, cutting down their trees." He uses 

 coarse wild meadow hay for mulch under his 

 trees, and raises squashes between the rows. 



Ploughing or not ploughing is only one of 

 the conditions of a good apple crop ; and the 

 good or bad effects of this operation depends 

 on so many circumstances of soil and of sub- 

 sequent and previous management, that we do 

 not suppose that any one rule can be adopted 

 for general practice. Suppose one orchard to 

 be founded on a rock or some impervious sub- 

 soil, but a few inches below the surface ; and 

 another to be planted in deep mellow earth, 

 like the western "openings," where a plough 

 may be put in "to the beam" clear up to the 

 trunk or stump of the scattering oaks. Now 

 in ploughing these two orchards might not the 

 effect be very different.'' In one case, an or- 

 dinary furrow might sever nearly every root, 

 in the other case but few might be disturbed. 



No one witli "half an eye" for fruit trees 

 can travel through the country without notic- 

 ing the great difference between the appear- 

 ance and fruitfulness of cultivated and uncul- 

 tivated orchards. Indeed we have been 

 forced to the conclusion tiiat it is useless to 

 set an orchard in gi^^ss land on the old farms 

 of New England. The idea of the spontane- 

 ous production of apples must be abandoned. 

 If we would raise fruit we must work for it. 



