17G 



How to Renovate an " Outcast." 



Vol. XI. 



From Downing's Horticulturist. 

 To Renovate an "Outcast." 



It is very rarely that experiments are pro- 

 perly made or accurately reported. The 

 following one, on a subject highly interest- 

 ing to every cultivator of the Pear tree on 

 the sea-board, appears to us highly satisfac- 

 tory in both respects. 



Such of our readers as are familiar with 

 the Appendix to our work on Fruits, are 

 well aware that we do not believe in the 

 natural " running out" of varieties. In 

 other words, we are confident that wherever 

 a variety, once productive and excellent 

 in a certain soil, fails, it is for the want of 

 certain conditions necessary to its success. 

 Either it has exhausted the soil of those 

 constituents necessary to health and pro- 

 ductiveness ; or if the tree is a young one, 

 and immediately shows signs of decay, it is 

 evident that it has been propagated from an 

 unhealthy and diseased stock. 



The hints we gave our correspondent be- 

 low, were based on some chemical notions, 

 which were only vague theory then, but 

 which subsequent observations have given 

 us greater confidence in. The renovating 

 substances that we recommended in this 

 case, were intended to be adapted to the 

 peculiarities of the soil of J. B. W.; but all 

 the alteration which we are able, even now, 

 to suggest for other sites, would be to sub- 

 stitute air-slaked lime for charcoal, in hea- 

 vier soils, that are naturally deficient in the 

 former substance. 



The salts of iron, and especially sulphate 

 of iron, have a specific action upon the dis- 

 ease which attacks, in unfavourable soil or 

 climate, the epidermis of the pear and other 

 plants, both on the leaf and fruit. Obser- 

 vations of the occasional results of black- 

 smith's cinders, applied to this tree, in va- 

 rious parts of the country, first drew our 

 attention to this fact. We have lately seen 

 a paper, read before the Academy of Sci- 

 ences at Paris, by M. Boussingault, bearing 

 directly on the diseases of plants as affected 

 by the salts of iron, which confirm and ex- 

 tend our own crude views on this subject. 

 The substance of this essay we shall, at 

 some convenient moment, lay before our 

 readers. 



In the mean time, we beg the attention 

 of our readers to the plain and simple mode 

 adopted in the experiment below. If, as 

 we are convinced, a tree, which some have 

 condemned as an "outcast" from pomolo- 

 gical society, may be renovated so easily as 

 this, it is quite worth while to "spare" it. 

 The quantities of the substances added to 

 the soil to renovate it, were, it should be 



remembered, applied to a tree nearly full 

 grown. One-half, one-fourth, or less, should, 

 of course, be used to trees of corresponding- 

 ly less size and age. 



A hint may be taken from this treatment 

 of old trees, for the better culture of young 

 ones on soil naturally unfavourable. — Ed. 



To the Editor of the Horticulturist. 



You will remember the conversation we 

 had together three years ago, about the ap- 

 parently worn out condition of my Virgalieu 

 or St. Michael pear trees. I spoke of them 

 then, in the language of Knight and Ken- 

 rick, as "degenerate outcasts." Though 

 they had once borne me excellent crops of 

 fruit, which I have never seen surpassed, yet 

 for several years they had only produced 

 cracked, blighted, miserable fruit — indeed 

 such as was absolutely worthless, 



I remarked to you, that I considered the 

 variety worn out, and good for nothing in 

 my neighbourhood, and that I intended to 

 cut down my trees, which were large and 

 fine, and ought to yield every year several 

 bushels. 



My situation is a sheltered one in West- 

 chester county; and after some inquiries 

 about my soil, which is a light, though ex- 

 cellent, sandy loam, you told me that you 

 believed the trees had exhausted the proper 

 elements from the soil ; that in consequence 

 the fruit failed, and recommended me, in- 

 stead of cutting them down, to renovate 

 them. 



Struck with the force of your reasoning 

 at the time, which I have not leisure now 

 to repeat to your readers, I determined to 

 make a trial with two trees. I did so in 

 the fall of 1843. I have now the pleasure 

 of repeating in writing, what I told you ver- 

 bally, that I have now had two crops of 

 beautiful fair fruit, as excellent as the finest 

 that grew upon my soil twenty years ago. 



As many persons about New York and 

 Long Island, have trees of the Doyenne or 

 Virg-alieu pear in the same degenerate con- 

 dition in which mine were, I comply with 

 your request to give a simple statement of 

 my proceeding with my trees, premising in 

 the outset, that it is entirely based upon the 

 hints I received from you. 



In the month of October, 1843, I took in 

 hand two large and thrifty Virgalieu pear 

 trees, about twenty or thirty feet in height. 

 I first scraped off all the rough outer coat 

 of bark, and coated the trunk of the tree 

 over with soft soap, put on with a paint 

 brush. I next cut out about one-third of all the 

 poorest branches, and shortened the head of 

 the tree one-third, by "heading back" the 

 principal limbs, covering the wounds after 



