NEW ENI^IiANB FARMER. 



Published by John B. Russell, at M>. 52 JVorili Market Street, (at the Agricultural Warehouse). — Thomas G. Fessenden, Editor. 



niJ , >« — — — 



VOL. YIII. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1830. 



No. 31. 



RIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



THE PROPER Si-ZE OF TREES FOR 

 TRANSPLANTING. 



Icven years ago I wont to a nursery to procure I 

 trees for a farm which I had coinmenced ini- 

 iiig. Impressed with the popular notion, tliat 

 arger the tree the better, I took the largest I 

 d find. I have nursed them faitlifully ; yet 

 ' 1 a hundred I have not yet gathered a bushel 

 pples. They underwent so great a lo.ss of 

 s in transplanting, that they have hardly yet 

 vered from the operation ; and nearly one 



I became so sickly and dozy, that I dug them 

 nd put others in their stead. Trees that have 

 vn from the seed since these large ones were 

 out, now surpass them in vigor and size. 



'his unfortunate debut in the cultivation of 

 , induced me to search into the cause of my 



ppointment ; and I send you the result of my 

 y in this branch of vegetable ])hysiology. 



,oots are literally the mouths of plants. The 



II fibrils, which Cobbett says should be cut 

 and which others say are, like the leaves, an 

 ual production, but whicli are neither useless 

 annual, are furnished with minute sponge- 

 substances which absorb from the soil the ali- 

 tary juices that nourish the ])lant. These 

 iths are numerous in proportion to the size of 

 tree. When in a healthy conilition, and in a' 

 J soil, the food which they take in, causes a 

 itant dilation of the sap vessels, and a vigorous 

 ivth of the plant. In transplanting large trees, 

 ;e essential organs of nutrition are greatly <li- 

 ished, and often wholly destroyed. In this 

 e, if the tree lives, it seldom grows. For want 

 he juices which the fibrils absorbed and sent 

 the sap vessels become contracted and rigid, 

 entire system of the plant becomes deranged, 



a long time elapses, under favorable circum- 

 ices, ere the organs of vitality are renovated, 



acquire their pristine vigor. It resembles the 

 ishing animal, restricted to a pittance of food. 



I the muzzled ox in a luxuriant pasture, the 



is often starved to death, for want of the na- 

 il means, of which man has deprived it, of 

 :aking of the surrounding plenty. We see this 

 fied in town and country, in the general fail- 

 of large trees, which are planted out fjr or- 

 ient. And we often hear complaints against 



erymen, that their trees are good for nothing, 

 ely because the buyer, impatient to pluck the 

 t, or to enjoy the shade, of his new plantation, 



have none but large trees. 

 }p the other hand, when trees of moderate 



are removed, the mouths of the ])lant may be 

 serve i nearly entire, and if these are kept 

 St until replanted in a rich mellow soil, the 

 vvth is but very little retarded. The supply of 

 lis kept up, the sap vessels are filled, and the 



nary process of vegetable developement goes 

 regularly. I have measured twentynine inches 

 lew wood upon a moderate sized apple tree, 

 leh grew the first year after transplanting ; 

 wile many of the large trees noticed in the be- 

 yning of this article, did not make that length 



of new wood in five years. In transplanting trees 

 from two to seven feet in nursery, it is not com- 

 mon to lose one in liundrecLs. I have therefore 

 eoine to the conclusion, that we are likely to en- 

 joy the fruits of our labor the earliest, and with 

 much greater certainty, by transplanting trees 

 while we can preserve the system of roots nearly 

 entire. The absorbing vessels are then preserved ; 

 and elaboration and circulation go on actively, 

 aiid the plant not oidy lives, but grows. Four 

 ye.irs ago, a neighbor called to look at my plum 

 trees, but declined buying on account of their be- 

 ing too small (one year from the bud.) He want- 

 ed those which wouM bear the first year, and said 

 he could buy such for one dollar each. I pro- 

 liosed that he should take two of my small ones, 

 (being very thrit'tyj upon the condition, that if, at 

 (he end of five years, they were not better trees 

 than the large ones, he should not pay for them. 

 At the end of the third year, he told me I was 

 right. That his large trees did produce a few 

 plums the first year, but did not grow ; and that 

 the small ones had now outgrown them. 



The desire of early bearing is common, though 

 not always wise. The food of the cow is secreted 

 in flesh or in milk. If she is a great milker, she 

 does not increase in flesh. If she takes on flesh 

 rapidly, she does not contribute much to the pro- 

 duct of the dairy. So with the tree. If its ali- 

 ment is recpiired to mature a burthen of fruit, it 

 cannot contribute to the formation of new wood. 

 X ' .( if the tree is vigorous, the fruit is coin])ara- 

 tively trifling. Youth is the season for growth 

 in the plant as well as in the animal, and we can- 

 not contravene nature's laws in either with impu- 

 nity. The fruit of small trees never repays for 

 the injury the tree sustains in growth. 



I do not like to see precocity in animals nor 

 vegetables, nor in intellect. It indicates some- 

 thing unnatural, and forebodes premature death. 

 It is a symptom of lurking disease. In the tree, 

 whatever, natural or artificial, tends to diminish 

 the natural supply of food, to retard its elabora- 

 tion, or digestion in the leaves, or to obstruct the 

 free circulation of the vegetable juices, becomes 

 often the direct or remote cause of disease, and 

 induces the generation of fruit buds. Thus it is 

 common for trees to show blossoms and fruit the 

 first or second year after being transplanted, be- 

 fore they have acquireda vigorous growth. Hence 

 horizontal limbs produce more fruit than upright 

 ones, crooked trees more than straight ones ;— ^ 

 and hence the artificial means for obtaining fruit, 

 by shortening the roots, bending down the branch- 

 es, ring-barking, applying ligatures, &c, to induce 

 oviparous buds. 



Different trees require different periods to bring 

 them to a condition for transplanting. The peach 

 should always he budded the first year, and re- 

 moved the second. The apple, pear, and plum, 

 if grafted or budded when they are of the size of 

 the finger or thumb, should stand two years in the 

 nursery after this ojieration has been performed, 

 or may be moved without prejudice the third 

 year. Trees should be grouted or puddled imme- 

 diately after being taken up, and packed, or their 

 roots covered with earth, to prevent the fibres 

 from becoming dry, and disqualified from per- 



forming their offices. Bruised and broken roots 

 should be cut off". And the roots should be kept in 

 earth, when planting, until they are individually 

 wanted to put out. A NURSERYMAN. 



Jllbany, Feb. 6, 1830. 



F9R THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



DISEASE IN SHEEP. 



INIr Editor — I observe in your paper of the 

 23d .January, a communication from a brother 

 shepherd, with the initials of A. L. H. on the sub- 

 ject of a disorder which affects his flock, the 

 cause of which he is unable to ascertain. I can 

 most sincerely sympathise with him in his misfor- 

 tune, and wish i^ was in my power to assign the 

 cause with certainly. Were it not for the circum- 

 stance, as mentioned by him, that the sheep have 

 died, when away from the barn, there would he 

 little doubt in my mind, that the malady is occa- 

 sioned by feeding altogether too much on dry 

 food, hay. Unless his farm produces some plant 

 poisonous to the animal, I suspect it is the dry fod- 

 der that has produced the mischief, and that when 

 once disordered, if the sheep lives through the 

 winter, the effect is not recovered from, and they 

 continue to droop and die through the season of 

 grass feed, as has been the case in other instances. 



It is very desirable, if, as he fears, his sheep 

 die this winter, that the viscera of the abdomen 

 be examined by some person capable of marking 

 the difference, Ik tween a healthy and disordered 

 tate of tliu L-t.v;«nts Of the belly. My conjecture 

 being right he will find the third stomach, or man- 

 ifolds, the seat of difficulty. Having more than 

 fifty sheep die last winter with symptoms not 

 very dissimilar to those described by him, I open- 

 ed more than a dozen, and the uniform appear- 

 ances in this stomach, were, some slight degree 

 of inflanmiation in the coats, which were also, as 

 well as the folds within, in a dry and hardened 

 state in most instances, so much so, that secretion 

 had entirely ceased. The food, with which the 

 stomach was filled, was also so dry, as to be taken 

 out with the fingers, and strewed about like moist 

 sawdust. The malady which affected my sheep, 

 was very general through the State of Maine, and 

 some other parts of New England. There is no 

 doid)t with me, from facts collected, and my ob- 

 servations, that the disorder was occasioned by the 

 quality of the hay, grown and cut in a very wet 

 season. It afforded but little nutriment, and 

 perhaps possessed positively injurious qualities. 



Leaving the question, what is the cause of the 

 disorder in the flock of A. L. H. undetermined un- 

 til he has an opportunity to examine his dead 

 sheep, I will venture to say that the principal cause 

 of the death of sheep in winter is owing to dry food. 

 It is well known to almost every sheep owner, 

 that he loses hut few sheep by grass, compared 

 with those which die in winter. M. Daubentopt, 

 a celebrated French agriculturist, is sanguine, that 

 the mortality which more or less prevails among 

 sheep in winter in France, where they are not 

 under the necessity of feeding half so long per- 

 haps, as we do here, is caused by dry food. He 

 examined a great number after death, and de- 

 scribes appearances of the third stomach as similar 

 to those above stated. 



