THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



137 



covered fii-st with hassocks or tovigli-svvard sod; 

 and afterwards witli the soil to a depth so as not 

 to be reached by the plough. Traiisversii ditch 

 cs covered in like manner connect the outside 

 with other open ditches at convenient distaRces 

 on the level ot' the lowest meadow, and through 

 a main ditch the whole water is carried off to the 

 lowest point of the lot. But this has only been 

 a jiiirt of the underground work which has made 

 of this meadow, out of which when mowed at 

 the driest season of the year Mr. P. said he had 

 when a boy while poling the hay ofF often sunk 

 to the armpit's, a field which will produce the 

 largest crop of hay for the whole life of man. 

 In the most sunken, cold part of the meadow, 

 Mr. Phinney has caused ditches to be made of 

 some eight to ten feet in width extending towards 

 the centre of the meadow from the ditch at the 

 edgi;. Into these ditches in the winter the stones 

 from the weight of tons to the merest pebble are 

 drawn, while" the ground is frozen : filled with 

 the stones to the proper height, the coal black 

 soil of the meadow is dug out so as to form a 

 new ditch, covering the rocks to the depth of 

 twenty inches and more so that the plough carv- 

 not reach then,, and raising the surface several 

 inches above its former position. This process has 

 been repeated, filling one ditch by the digging of 

 another until the pood part of an acre of ground 

 has been gone over with a substratum of stones 

 covered by a rich soil which produces year after 

 year the largest crops of hay. The efrect of the 

 deposition of rock is the proper draining of the 

 whole surface of the meadow within, so that the 

 land is proof against both wet and drought, and 

 the ground may be readily tilled with the plough 

 and hoe as often as it may be deemed expedient 

 to break up th6 sward. The low meadow land, 

 drained and prepared in this way, is said to be 

 excellent for raising early potatoes for the mar- 

 ket : this crop on that ground fears no drought^ 

 the potatoe vines are free from rust. On this 

 same meadow we saw at a distance two years 

 ago when we made a hasty visit to this place in 

 the absence of Mr. Phinney, a crop of corn 

 growing of a great size, and then supposed the 

 meadow was like the common intervale upon our 

 river where Indian corn is alwav-; raised. In 

 1840 the corn field was i)ut dnwii to a crop of 

 small grain ; and this year fur the first crop three 

 tons to the acre of the best Englisli hay had been 

 taken from the ground, and a luxuriant second 

 crop was now growing. Two or more acres 

 lower down the same meadow and upon the oth- 

 er side of the highway, more recently treated in 

 the same manner, last year planted with potatoes, 

 were this year sowed down to herdsgrass in 

 April: the grass sprang at once so that a great 

 crop of this first rate hay was taken off in July, 

 and another crop was nearly ready for the 

 scythe. 



The meadow made thus valuable — and Mr. P. 

 hinks it to yield him an imtiual income equrd to 

 six per cent, upon five hundred dollars to the 

 acre — was prepared at an expense far less than 

 its real value. The bodies of stone upon the 

 ground in the vicinity must be taken somewhere: 

 left at any point above ground, tliey are much in 

 the way. llpon this (iirin Wr. P. before he adopt- 

 ed this method had disposed of many thousand 

 tons in the construction of several Inmdred rods 

 of double wall for fbnccs until the entire fiirm 

 was partitioned into couveiiient enclosures. But 

 the stones were much too nitmerous, and many 

 of them were too small to he used any where to 

 advantage above ground. Picked and piled up 

 in the jumirier, a jiortion of the winter business 

 of the farm was to teain these rocks to their use- 

 ful destination in the underground meadow ditch- 

 es. Upon this meadow when the fresh herds- 

 grass runs out after a few years the ground is at 

 once prepared for a new growth by turning over 

 the sward in September, spreading some ten or 

 a dozen loads of compost manure to the acre, and 

 sowing new clover and herdsgrass. 



A SPLENDID ORCHARD. 



In t.lie same enclosure with this meadow to the 

 Boiith-west of the old orchard and upon a declivi- 

 ty facing towards the meadow at the east, is Mr. 

 i'hinney's new orchard of five hundred trees, 

 nearly all of which are grafted with the Baldwin 

 apple. This orchard produt ed last year seven 

 liiiiulred barrels of picked apples. Mr. P. is of 

 opinion that if the whole number of trees had 

 been left standing in the orchard the production 



would have reached one thousand barrels. In 

 the severe winter of 1832, a portion of the then 

 young trees which stood in the richer ground at 

 the lower side of the orchard, was killed or so 

 injured as to die afterwards. Mr. P. attributes 

 the destruction of trees on that part of the or- 

 chard at this time to the too great fertility of the 

 soil and more rapid growth of the tree, the body 

 of the tree having more sap and circulation upon 

 the rich than upon the less fertile ground. Thi» 

 orchard had also suffered one winter from the 

 depredations of mice under the snow, the mice 

 gnawing off the bark entirely just above where 

 the tree united with the ground. The proprietor 

 had saved the lives of these trees in almost eve- 

 ry instance by inserting a shoot or scion in three 

 different places aroimd the body of the Iree un- 

 der the bark both above and below the injured 

 part, and binding a cloth girdle so as to cover the 

 whole of the tree where the bark had been peel- 

 ed ; in this manner the sap was conducted tiom 

 the roots of the tree upwards into the body 

 through the shoots. 



The new orchard covered a space of ten acres : 

 this ground had frotn year to year been cultiva- 

 ted more with a view to the growth of the trees 

 than to the crops from the earth. The ground 

 was not forced by stimulaticg manures, nor yet 

 kept in a poor state — a medium quantity was 

 from time to tiine applied. The growth of the 

 orchard is promoted and the trees kept in a 

 healthy stale by frequent stirring of the ground. 



Mr. Phinney, although educated to the bar, un- 

 derstands to our tnind the management of apple 

 trees a little better than any man whose orcharfl 

 we have visited. He had an early taste for im- 

 proving fruit trees : he showed us trees in the old 

 orchard which he said while a boy he had grafted 

 by moon-light many years ago when the grafting 

 of fruit was a new business in Lexington : he 

 grafted them secretly fearing that his father would 

 complain of injury to the trees. The trees of 

 the yoimg orchard had been set in the groimd 

 only fifteen years, and were seventeen yeai-s from 

 the seed. The bodies of many of them had al- 

 ready spread to the size of large apple trees : 

 some of them had borne several barrels of fruit 



a year. The large body and litnbs to the size 



a man's body and thigh, denoting their rapid 

 growth, were of the yellow smooth skin of a 

 quick growing limb in a well managed nurserj'. 

 This orchard presents a living demonstration of 

 the truth of the apothegm of the poet, that "as 

 the twig was bent, the tree inclines." Mr. P. has 

 given a direction to the limbs instead of the com- 

 mon angle upwards, running out horizontally 

 from the body, thereby contributing to increase 

 its capacity for hearing and its strength, as well 

 as the convenience of hand picking the apples 

 from the points of the limbs farliiest from the 

 body. Trees formed in this way are found to 

 sustain a much greater burden of ))roduction and 

 to withstand better the severe exposure of the 

 season than those branching higher into the air 

 at an angle of forty-five degrees. Mr. P. has 



:'llent 



and will undoubtcdl 

 al successive years. 



A FINE PEACH ORCHARD. 



Turning to the north-westerly side of the same 

 hill we came upon Mr. Phinney's iiremises to an 

 elegant peach orchard of about ono hundred 

 trees, propped up under a weight of the present 

 year's growth, quite sufficient to break down the 

 branches of the tree. The growth of this peach 

 orchard the present year woidd inobably pay fiir 

 the whole expense of its cultivation from the 

 commencement, and the use of the soil which 

 it covers. Peach- orchards are extensively culti- 

 vated on the light grounds of New Jersey: ih<'y 

 there do not last beyond the age of eight or ten 

 years, and grow to no very considerable tree. 

 They are set in fields of sandy soil, and the 

 ground is cultivated arotmd them for the first 

 seasons until they begin to hear. There are or- 

 chards of many thousand trees, which if they 

 bear only for a few years, are found highly profi- 

 table to the owners. Hundreds of baskets of 

 this ii'uit in their season are daily sent to tlie 

 markets at New York and Philadelphia ; and in 

 some seasons of scarcity they are sold, not by 

 measure, but by count, and at prices fiom two 

 to six dollars a hundred. Since the quick pas- 



sage of rail-roads and steam-boats, peaches are 

 brought fiom New Jersey to Boston : this year 

 the Jersey crop has almost entirely failed. The 

 cultivation of the peach used to be common in 

 the vicinity of Boston : forty and fifty years ago 

 the red "rare-ripes" and yellow "'melacantoons " 

 —we take the words from the mouths of our 

 ancestors, and from no dictionary— were almost 

 as plenty as tipples. The severe winters of the 

 last twenty-five years, with the prevalence of the 

 insects, stinging its bark, had been so destructive 

 of the peach-tree that the orchards were nearly 

 exterminated. Mr. David Hill, of West Cam- 

 bridge, lias an orchard nearly twenty years old, 

 from which he has succeeded in producing every 

 alternate year many bushels of peaches during 

 the last ten years : he has procured some treea 

 from the Jersey nurseries, budded with the best 

 varieties of this delightful fruit, and has many 

 trees in bearing this season that are not more 

 than half a dozen years fi-om the bud : some of 

 these trees will give several doHars profit. Mr. 

 Phinney's peach orchard is a little older, say 

 eight or ten years from the stone. It is on ele- 

 vated ground, with a declination to the north- 

 west looking on the Wachusett and Monadnock 

 at the distance of forty and sixty miles west and 

 north-west. Mr. P. thinks this position better 

 calculated to inure the peach tree to the climate 

 than land with a declination towards the south 

 and east, because during the winter season the 

 orchard will not so ofVen go through the process 

 of obstinate freezing and thaw ing, which is most 

 of all conducive to the destruction of the peach 



Mr. Phinney's peach orchard at the time of our 

 visit, on the lOth of September, was in a situa- 

 tion to feast the eye as well as the appetite ; the 

 fruit on most of the trees was more prominent 

 than the body and foliage of the trunk itself, and 

 the difi'erent hues, the yellow and the crimson 

 tinge, the product of nature herself, was more 

 beautiful than the imitation of the most skilful 

 artist, and glowing even as the changeable color 

 of the kaleidoscope. 



Mr. Phinney's peach orchard is cultivated, 

 ploughed and manured, with a view exclusively 

 to the growth and preservation of the trees ; no 

 crop is raised on that, with the exception of a 

 crop of English turnips sown in August, which 

 will mature so late in the season as to do no in- 

 jury to the trees. The orchard consists of some 

 three or four acres ; at the upper extreme is a 

 grapery clinging to a trellised frame structure 

 running nearly the width of the lot. On either 

 side of this grapery the ground has been culti- 

 vated for vines, which had been prolific in the 

 production of the cantelope, one of the sweetest 

 of the melon species. The grapes are the kind 

 " christened IsabtUa," we believe a foreign vari- 

 ety, requiring a longer season than the grape 

 natural in this part of the country. The vines 

 upon this trellis were full of fruit; but insects 

 or some disorder, within the last two years, were 

 evidently making inroads towards their destruc- 

 tion. Rir. Phinney said he would be obliged to 

 supi)lant tlierii in this pofition. From time to 

 time he has stuck dov 

 upon the side of his di 

 have spread so as to cover tlie wall, and the ripe 

 clusters of the large native grape hung in a po- 

 sition which invited the passer by to taste and 

 eat. The peach trees of Mr. Phinney's orchart^ 

 as are his other fruit trees in other "places, are 

 treated w ith a cover of salt hay laid over the 

 ground within the shade directly under them; 

 this deposition undoubtedly has its advantages in 

 protecting and perfecting the tree. 



The jirofit, from orchards of superior fruit, 

 ha.s been such as to induce Mr. P. to give them 

 particular attention : his main apple orchard is 

 that where the trees seventeen years from the 

 seed, inoculated and nursed much by his own 

 band, have flourished, as we have described. 

 Where the trees were killed by the severity of 

 the year 1832, their place, as they have success- 

 ively died out, has been supplied with new trees 

 from the nursery. The orchard is fast improv- 

 ing, and will, in the course of ten years, prob- 

 ably double its present quantity of fruit 



A YOUHGEn, orchard: success Of THE SUB- 

 SOIL PLOUGH. 



But Mr. P. is not satisfied with this as the ad- 

 dition to his original apple orchard: he has an- 

 other consisting of about six acres, covered, with 



