1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



533 



to detail the means by which their orchards 

 are made exceptions to the general decay and 

 failure of those which surround them. One 

 of these men on being asked last year, how is 

 it that your trees hang full while all the rest 

 of us have no fruit, replied, "why, all I can 

 say is, I prepare and till and mulch my ground 

 well, keep oiF and destroy caterpillars, canker 

 worms, web worms, and prune my trees my- 

 self. No matter what I am doing, if cater- 

 pillars of any kind are seen on my trees I go 

 and de -troy them forthwith ; in brief, I com- 

 ply with all the conditions, so far as I know 

 them, of a good apple crop, and I get one an- 

 nually, while my neighbors failing to do so, 

 have little fruit, become discouraged, and are 

 and have been for years diggingup their trees." 

 This man regards the Williams' apple (Wil- 

 liams' Favorite, Early Red) which is repre- 

 sented by the above cut, as the very best early 

 market apple. It requires a strong, moist 

 soil and good cultivation, to bring the fruit to 

 perfection, and then it is splendid, and the 

 most saleable apple in the Boston market. Mr. 

 Pierce has thirty-eight of these trees from 

 which he gathered over 200 bushels last year, 

 although it was a very unfavorable year for 

 fruit. The highest price last year was $6 a 

 bushel ; the year before he sold some for $8 

 a bushel. Now 



"What others da, 

 Why, with patience, may not you ?" 



The only reason is that you are not willing 



to recognize the fact that trees in our day can 



no more bear a good crop of apples without 



proper food and care, than a cow can give a 



good mess of milk without plenty to eat. As 



rich men's sons are apt to grow up without a 



practical knowledge of what a dollar cost, "so 



the people of New England, judging from the 



almost spontaneous growth of apples when the 



country was new, have got wrong notions into 



their heads about what a bushel of apples cost. 



Instead of setting out one or two hundred 



trees, as the old settlers did, often on the 



poorest spot on their farms, let us try five or 



ten trees in the richest place we have, and 



take the best care of them we know how, and 



see if we cannot raise fruit to eat and fruit 



to sell. 



— Dr. Durfee stated in his address at the Mid- 

 dlesex County fair that the value of the farms in 

 that county is ^4,000,000, and their products 

 $8,000,000 per annum. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 INTELLECT AND SKILL IN FARMING. 



Tliere is no occupation which is so truly 

 scientific in all its bearings as that of farming. 

 It is Jtrue, there are few of the mechanic arts 

 that do not involve scientific principles ; but 

 none which are so strictly scientific as farming. 

 Planting and growing crops are strictly chem- 

 ical in their character ; every process is a 

 chemical manipulation. The composting of 

 manures is also chemical, whether the opera- 

 tor understands chemistry or not. The rais- 

 ing of stock is strictly physiological, and any 

 person to be a feeder and judge of stock ought 

 to understand physiology and anatomy. And 

 in order to be eminently successful in any of 

 these branches, it is absolutely necessary that 

 the farmer should be a good logician. 



Now, I am aware that this will somewhat 

 startle, or may at least move the risibility of a 

 few, because they will readily admit that chem- 

 istry, physiology and anatomy are of eminent 

 service to the farmer, but logic, they suppose, 

 belongs to the lawyer, stump orator, or, per- 

 haps, to the minister ; but as to the farmer, they 

 cannot see what he has to do with logic. They 

 would, perhaps, be willing to admit, — as did 

 a friend of mine the other day, — who, by the 

 by, is an unsuccessful tradesman, — that it is 

 easy to t e a farmer, as all that it required is a 

 good degree of muscle ; but it will be found 

 that in order to become a successful farmer, 

 not only muscle, but brains are required, as 

 much as in any branch of business, or any pro- 

 fession. If either can be dispensed with, it is 

 muscle, for I am sorry to say that it is easier 

 to hire muscle in any branch of business, than 

 brains. There are numbers who prefer hiring 

 muscle minus brains, to the two combined ; 

 in other words, they prefer ignorant to intel- 

 ligent labor, — hence we find the farm laborers 

 and the factory operatives unintelligent for- 

 eigners. 



I have of late been reading discussions in 

 farmers' clubs, and have discovered in them a 

 want of knowledge on scientific principles. 

 To illustrate one or two points, I would call 

 attention to the uses of meadow-muck, this 

 being one of the subjects I have seen discussed. 

 While many testified to the increase of the 

 manure-pile by the use of muck, there were 

 those who contended that the hauling of muck 

 to the barn-yard and then to the field was a 

 useless outlay of labor, as the only good the 

 muck had done was to dilute the manure, and 

 the question was, "Is it not cheaper to apply 

 the manure in its concentrated form, rather 

 than in its more bulky form of a compost with 

 meadow muck ?" I wish to apply to this ques- 

 tion a few scientific principles, logically de- 

 duced. 



All admit that the greatest portion of mead- 

 ow muck is of vegetable origin ; and, as such, 

 is a valuable fertilizer, for that which has once 

 been vegetable is always a supporter of vege- 



