1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



229 



For the New England Farmer. 



CULTURE OF ORCHARDS. 



It is said in the Farmer of this date, March 21, 

 1857, in answer to the inquiry, "Will young trees 

 do well set where there has been an orchard ?" — 

 that '-a young orchard will grow well on the site 

 of an old one, if you manure and move the soil 

 well." If it was intended by this answer to imply 

 that a young orchard will grow as well, where there 

 has before been an orchard, as where there has 

 not been — it states a doctrine not in accordance 

 with the lessons I have learned for the last fifty- 

 seven years. 



When I was a boy, in the year 1800, my. father 

 purchased a farm that had been famous for its pro- 

 duct of apples and cider. Many of the trees were 

 then from thirty to eighty years old. One of his 

 first eiforts was, to grow a nursery of young trees, 

 to have the means at home, for keeping his orchard 

 in good condition. More than five hundred of the 

 trees that started in this nursery are now growing 

 on this farm — where they were set by my own 

 hands. If anything was learned by this experi- 

 ment, it was, that it is not judicious to set out trees 

 where the soil has been exhausted of those ele- 

 ments which are essential to the productive growth 

 of trees and fruits. 



If you would have an orchard worth rearing — 

 set your trees in positions favorable to • their 

 growth ; such as by the side of high walls — in hol- 

 low places where there is a good depth of soil — 

 by the gutter where the wash comes in from the 

 liighv.'ay — and other select places. It is much 

 more important to have a tree thus set, than to 

 have them straight in rows, just so many feet apart. 

 I have known more apples to grow on four roods 

 of land properly selected .and properly cared for, 

 year after year, for ten successive years — than on 

 four acres of handsomely arranged trees with ten 

 times the num!)er. 



A striking instance occurs to mind, on one of 

 the largest farm.s in the county, where forty years 

 since the proprietor, a man of means and enlarged 

 views, determined to have an orchard that should 

 surpass all, others. For this purpose, he selected 

 about twenty acres, and set out his trees in straight 

 rows, forty feet apart — and spared no vigilance in 

 digging about, fertilizing and training the same. 

 For a few years they grew and looked beautiful, 

 and were the admiration of all who saw them. 

 Thus they progressed until the proprietor was 

 summoned to depart, and his extended farm passed 

 into the hands of his heirs-at-law. Anxious to car- 

 ry out the views of their venerated sire, they kept 

 the farm entire — and had it carried on to the 

 halves. But what became cf the beautiful oi chard? 

 As soon as the fostering care was withdrawn, the 

 bodies of the trees became covered with moss — the 

 grub of the cankerworm lodged about their roots ; 

 the limbs began to crumble and fall, and for sev- 

 eral years more apples matured on a single acre ol 

 naturally planted trees in a neighboring pasture, 

 than were found on the whole extent of this once 

 splendid orchard. So much for 



March 21, 1857. Experience. 



Remarks. — We should not select, in preference 

 to new land, the site of an old orchard to plant a 

 new one upon ; but if that site was preferable to 

 other lands in surface, location, &c., we should have 



no hesitation in doing so, only give us plenty of 

 barn-yard manure to apply to it. We know a field 

 in the writer's own neighborhood where a luxuriant 

 crop of rye has been raised, it is said, for more than 

 fifty years in succession — we certainly have seen it 

 a great many times from early boyhood. But rye 

 grows there still, and probably would for a thou- 

 sand years longer, under the same treatment which 

 the land has heretofore received. 



No doubt apple trees deprive the soil, in some 

 measure, of the particular substances necessary to 

 their growth ; but if it has not been exhausted by 

 them, as most of our old orchards have been ex- 

 hausted by apples, grass, potatoes, beans, corn, and 

 everything else that could be wrung from them, 

 there is no difficulty in raising a new orchard upon 

 the site of an old one. 



Stir the ground deeply, and mingle the fertilizer 

 freely and intimately with it, keep weeds or crops 

 from feeding too largely upon it, and success will 

 crown the eff"orts of any who plant a young orchard 

 on an old site. 



When a growth of oaks has been cut off, the soil 

 is undoubtedly deprived, in a considerable degree, 

 of the elements necessary to rear up another 

 growth of the same plant, and as nature fertilizes 

 her exhausted acres by a process rather slow, she 

 introduces pines, birches, or some other tree which 

 may find the elements suited to its growth. But 

 we, not caring to wait for this process, fertilize by 

 a shorter cut, and dump on twenty- five loads per 

 acre of warm and quickening manures, that soon 

 supply all the elements that any plant requires. 



But our correspondent is a close observer, has 

 had large experience, and his words are entitled to 

 careful consideration. 



For Vie New England Farmer. 



LEGISLATIVE AGRICULTURAL MEET- 

 INGS. 



Friend Brown : — I thank you for the copy of 

 the Mark-Lane Express for February 25, that 

 came to hand this morning. If we could look at- 

 tentively to the manner in which the farmers on the 

 other side of the great pond do up their chores, it 

 would take the stuffing out of some of our notions. 



I listened attentively to the remarks of the dis- 

 tinguished gentleman who presided at the meeting. 

 He never says anything trifling or small. There 

 are few men of his years that possess better prac- 

 tical common sense than Governor Boutwell. Ex- 

 cepting his remarks, last evening, upon the com- 

 parative advantages of farming at the East with 

 those at the West, I do not remember anything 

 worthy of special note. Would it not be well for 

 the committee who direct in these matters, to mark 

 out a line of discussion to be followed by their leg- 

 islative associates — and let the outsiders, here and 

 there, interline such suggestions as their experi- 

 ence may dictate ? These discussions are carried 

 on mainly for laying the foundation of diffusing in- 

 formation in the journals of the day, each individ- 



