242 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



cultivation. There is an artificial pond in the cen- 

 tre, of about ten acres, well supplied with fish; 

 carp and eels. Two days in March are devoted to 

 taking fish from this pond. I happened to be pre- 

 sent when three tons were taken by a net at one 

 haul. Every department of this farm was conduct- 

 ed with a system superior to anything I ever saw 

 in our country, and at a profit, I have no doubt, to 

 the owners. 



Their large and commodious barns of stone were 

 well filled with fat cattle and sheep. I saw 200 

 wethers there of the Merino species, that would, in 

 the Boston market, command from ten to twenty 

 dollars per head. 



Very respectfully, yours, 



Solomon W. Jewett. 



Weybridge, Vt., July 1st, 1851. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 RENOVATING OLD APPLE TREES. 



Mr. Cole: — For several years past I have read 

 in our agricultural papers many articles tending 

 to show the profit of an increased attention to old 

 and decaying apple trees. The gist of these com- 

 munications would seem to indicate that old, sward 

 bound, unproductive, and even diseased trees, 

 might be regenerated and become profitable, — if the 

 original fruit were good; and, if otherwise, it might 

 be made good by grafting — by cultivation of the 

 soil in which they stand, by pruning, washing, 

 scraping and liberal manuring about the roots. 



Some years since I purchased a small landed es- 

 tate in this town, upon which were no fruit trees, 

 excepting two apple trees, in the green sward, ap- 

 parently about three-fourths grown, and believed to 

 be from twenty to twenty-five years old. These 

 trees, although not vigorous, did not exhibit any 

 strong marks of decay. On inquiry, I learned 

 that one of them was a greening, and had former- 

 ly produced a great variety of this fruit; and that 

 the other bore small, and nearly worthless ap- 

 ples. It was an object for me to obtain fruit in the 

 shortest time possible, and to effect this purpose 

 with greater certainty, I transplanted many small 

 apple trees, two years from the grafting, and also 

 attempted to resuscitate and invigorate the two old- 

 er trees. The ground around them was ploughed 

 and cultivated for four years; or from 1847 to 

 1850, inclusive. The land, generally, was well 

 manured, and an extra load the first year was 

 spread about the roots of these trees; and for the 

 three following seasons they were enriched in ad- 

 dition to the manuring of the land, either by male- 

 rial from my barn cellar, or with wood ashes. — 

 They were carefully pruned by an experienced 

 hand and thoroughly washed with a solution of 

 potass, made by dissolving one pound of the alka- 

 li in two gallons of water. They have been 

 scraped each year, and washed, sometimes with 

 very strong soap suds, and at others, with lime wa- 

 ter, — and no worm has been suffered to live on their 

 branches. The tree, producing worthless fruit, 

 was grafted in '47; but the greening was left un- 

 touched in this respect. The greening has not, 

 under this treatment, produced one fair apple ! and 

 the kw which have grown upon it were small and 

 unsightly. The grafted tree produced last year 

 about half a dozen fine apples; but this year the 

 fifth season since I have had the tree under care, 

 not one can be found on its branches. 



My small trees, transplanted four years ago last 

 spring, are very thrifty and promising. Many of 

 them already produce fruit; and some of these have 

 trunks of twelve and fifteen inches in circumfer- 

 ence, with large umbrageous tops. From this 

 orchard of young trees I could select perhaps fif- 

 ty, any one of which I should prefer to either of the 

 large, unreformed specimens. The expense of ex- 

 tra labor, and of fertilizing materials, expended on 

 these older trees, in four years, cannot be less than 

 $8 or $10; a sum sufficient for the purchase and 

 careful transplantation of at least twenty young 

 trees of choice fruit. 



My own experience, it will he seen, is not in fa- 

 vor of the expenditure of time and money to re- 

 cruit old apple trees; undoubtedly the experiment 

 sometimes proves highly successful; but still I am 

 inclined to believe that if the result of all the ef- 

 forts of this character were spread before the pub- 

 blic, they would not, in the aggregate, afford much 

 inducement for continued efforts of this nature. 



Abraham T. Lowe. 



Bridgewater, July Ath, 1851. 



For the Neiv England Farmer. 

 PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



Mr. Cole: — There is no such thing as a fixed 

 position for man in this world. A man must be 

 going forward or backward; for he who is not lear- 

 ing is certainly forgetting what he has learned be- 

 fore, if he ever knew anything. If we do not strive 

 to go beyond those who have lived before us, we 

 shall be inferior to them. No generation can pos- 

 sibly transfer its precise measure of knowledge to 

 another generation. In passing from the hand of 

 age to the hand of youth, many small particles 

 will slip through the fingers. 



The only way to keep up the standard and char- 

 acter of our agriculture, where our fathers had their 

 standard, is by striving earnestly to go beyond 

 them. We all fall far short of our aims, if they 

 are elevated as they should be. 



Those who have gone before us found the soil 

 which we now cultivate in a very diflferent state 

 from that in which they left it to us. They en- 

 countered tiieir difficulties, and we must also meet 

 ours; but it is useless for us to suppose that we 

 can cultivate the soil as they cultivated it, and ob- 

 tain such rewards for our labor as they obtained. 

 New difficulties, which they never encountered, 

 and new questions which they never studied, are 

 open to us. We may drink from the cup of knowl- 

 edge and be strengthened by so doing; or we may 

 murmur at our hard lot, and censure the hand of 

 Providence. 



Agriculture is to have a place in the study of 

 youth in our schools. Professor Johnston's "Cat- 

 echism of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology" is 

 to be recommended by the superintending school 

 committee of this, and probably of some other 

 towns, for introduction to our common schools. 



Every boy that grows up in our republic, wheth- 

 er his parents are rich or poor, ought to know how 

 to cultivate the soil. Then, if he engaged in some 

 other pursuit from choice, but did not meet with 

 success, he would not be cast upon the world in 

 hopeless want, to beg or steal. lie would exer- 

 cise his rightful lordship, and with hoe or spade, 

 or axe, go to a ready task with cheerfulness, and 

 live and learn, and every day grow wiser, and ev- 



