182 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



Btock. Of this latter fact he had been assured by 

 a great uian3' persons ^Yho had tried the experi- 

 ment. .Suppose a man has a ten acre lot, with 

 ten applo trees thereon, he will get more grass in 

 ten years l»y liuviiig those trees on his lot, than he 

 would get without them. Tiiey have a great ef- 

 fect in retaining tlie moisture in the land, which 

 is an important advantage in our dry hot summers. 

 And then suppose from those ten trees, ten bush- 

 els of marketable apples are gathered, amounting 

 to one hundred bushels of ai>ple8, which are ob- 

 tained besides the grass crop. He had no doubt 

 such a result might occur for seven years out of 

 ten. The cultivation of apples is as simple, al- 

 most, as that of a hill of corn, if begun rightly. 

 He would have his nursery trees shaped in the 7iur- 

 sery. They should not stand thickly, causing 

 them to run up slenderly, l)ut where the light and 

 air can come to them ; and for the lirst two or 

 tliree years allowing the lateral shoots which come 

 out in spring, to remain through the summer and 

 autumn. The leaves are the lungs of plants, and 

 if these little side shoots are cut off, the growth 

 of the tree is retarded, and sometimes entirely 

 suspended. He would cut them off late in the fall, 

 and if quite small, leave them through another 

 summer. The ground should be plowed deei^ly, 

 and pulverized well, and made as rich as a corn- 

 field Avould be which was intended to be laid down 

 to grass, and from which two tons of hay per 

 acre is expected. Dig around the tree, spread j 

 manure, add annually a little ashes, and they willj 

 grow on almost any soil. If properly taken care! 

 of when young, the full grown tree will rarely] 

 need trimming. The top of the tree should be' 

 kept open, to admit the light and air to ripen thel 

 fruit, for there is nothing that grows but needs aj 

 liberal supply of the sun. Mr. Brown said he^ 

 would not wash trees unless they had the appear- 

 ance of needing it, were mossy, or stunted by 

 neglect, and then a thorough scrubbing with soap 

 suds would give them a new start. Old orchards 

 he should not cut down, so long as there was two 

 or three inches of sound wood left ; but the trees 

 should be trimmed properly, and a crop of apples 

 can be obtained from them quicker than from young 

 tx'ces. Pruning should not be done in spring, after 

 the 8;ip is in motion, because it will continue to 

 flow from the wound, and soon becomes bitter and 

 poisonous ; it is so acrid and pungent as to mark 

 ita passjige down the bark of the tree by a black 

 stripe, which frequently kills the bark, and thus 

 commences the destruction of the tree. He would 

 trim, he said, iu the autumn, after the leaves have 

 fallen, say in October and November, or omit it 

 until Juue. 



Mr. CofKLAND, of Roxbury, remarked that when 

 a man plants a tree he should look at it as it 

 would look twenty years after, and trim it while 

 young, as he would like to have it appear at the 



end of that period, a thing which is perfectly easy 

 to accomplisli. As a general thing, trees have roots 

 of about the same size and number as the branch- 

 es ; and if large Ijranchcs are cut off close, tlie cor- 

 responding roots die and become a canker to the 

 tre«. H cut so as to leave a small branch on the 

 stump, the sap will flow into that, and the tree 

 will remain healthy. Great care should be exer- 

 cised in obtaining trees from nurseries, as there is 

 much deception practiced in regard to them. In- 

 stead of buying a cheap article, the farmer should 

 send to some nurseryman who has estalilished a 

 reputation for honesty, and by paying a fair price, 

 lie will obtain trees Avhieh he can rely upon. The 

 speaker instanced a case of successful cultivation 

 of dwarf pears, which was brought about by 

 thinning out the blossoms and fruit on the trees, 

 limiting some of them to ten or a dozen pears each, 

 thereby vastly increasing the flavor, size and 

 l)eauty of the fruit. This fruit, raised in New 

 Jersey was sold in the Philadelphia market in the 

 height of the season, for $1,00 to $2,00 per dozen, 

 when the same varieties, raised in the ordinary 

 way, did not command over $1,00 per bushel. He 

 thought farmers were too much afraid of this 

 mode of culture, and did not understand its ad- 

 vantages. 



Mr. French, of Braintree, alluded to the neces- 

 sity of starting right, by selecting a congenial soil 

 and preparing it rightly. It should be plowed 

 deeply, and if trenched with the spade it would be 

 an improvement. All those who cari"ied off the 

 premium for fruit last year raised it on light, 

 loamy soil. Pears on quince stock will bear plant- 

 ing a little deeper than those in their own stock. 

 If a tree, with the roots spread, is planted, too 

 low, it will become stunted and cease to grow; 

 but if planted on the top of the ground, as the 

 speaker had five acres, and then cover the roots 

 with manure, they would flourish exceedingly. 

 Out of 400 planted in this way he lostbutiit'o. He 

 thought old trees should not be gi-afted all over at 

 the same time. If the ti'co islarge,say 10 or 12 inch- 

 es in diameter, grafting the whole head at once, 

 will generally prove the death of the tree. If done 

 gradually the process is more likely to succeed. 

 Trees should be set out two rods to forty feet apart; 

 and on being set out the care of the tree is just 

 begun, instead of being finished. It would be 

 better to turn cattle into a cornfield than into an 

 orchard, because in the former the damage may 

 be remedied the next year, while in the latter, it 

 never can be. Animals, by rubbing against a tree, 

 rub off a kind of grease, which is very deleterious 

 to the tree. Some old farmers complain that they 

 cannot get any fruit from their orchards ; and no 

 wonder, for on examination it will be seen that 

 it is as much as the trees can do to live. The 

 leaves look yellow, and the ends of the limbs are 

 dead, a certain sign that the nourishment of the 



