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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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w ere duly protected from all animals and parasitic 

 plants, watered, and properly manured, an oak might 

 live twenty or thirty centuries as well as it now does 

 two or three. Why not ? 



The duration of the existence of trees resembles 

 far more tliat of an island than of an animal. An 

 embryo island rises above the surface of water in a 

 river'and gains in size by the deposit of additional 

 matter upon that which existed before. A circula- 

 ting medium brii^gs a new supply of raw material 

 iVom yenr to year, to augment the volume of the 

 growiii"- island. So the seed of a forest tree planted, 

 by tlie hand of nature on this same island, adds year 

 by year to the weight of organic and inorganic mat- 

 ter contained in the tree, drawn from surrounding 

 elements. Dr. Schleiben, and other botanists, de- 

 i^cribe trees believed to bo 5000 years old, and still 

 living. What has such a tree which gains in weight 

 every year for fifty centuries in common with an ani- 

 mal wiiich is never two days composed of the same 

 atoms, and whose life depends on a liberal supply of 

 organized food, even after it has ceased to grow ? 

 Plants subsist on mineral, or disorganized elements, 

 such as air, water, and earthy substances. 



We will not say that there is no limit to the dura 

 tion of varieties of fruit trees and of plants, for even 

 continents do not last always, and families, and whole 

 classes both of vegetables and animals, become ex- 

 tinct from unknown causes, apparently to give place 

 to new races called into being by infinite wisdom. 

 Geology abounds in facts illustrative of transitions of 

 this kind. The popular idea inculcated by Mr. 

 TowNLFYj-that "varieties of plants" are of quite 

 limited duration, is an easy and not unnatural excuse 

 for the mismanagement of fruit trees, potatoes, and 

 other crops. Mr. Ksight, with all his artistic skill 

 and large experience, did not comprehend the very 

 modern science of feeding plants ; nor was the excel- 

 lent and truly learned Loudon better informed in that 

 particular. This is no more to their discredit than 

 is the fact that electric telegraphs, printing by sun- 

 beams, and reaping by horse-power, have been disr 

 covered since their time. 



Cold and heat, sunshine and shade, humidity and 

 dryness, insects and fungi, decaying mould andunde- 

 composing minerals, and excess of some elements 

 and a deficiency of others, a feast of poisons and a 

 wnnt of food, are the extraneous influences which 

 limit the duration of varieties of plants. These are 

 sufficient to account for the early death of cultivated 

 trees, and the premature dissolution of roots and tu- 

 bers, without gratuitously assuming tiiat there is 

 some natural defect in the vitality of buds. The life 

 of plants is well enough, whether communicated by 

 buds or seeds, just as God has ma le it. But to un- 

 derstand how buds and seeds change their cellular 

 into a vassular tissue, liow substances imbibed through 

 the leaves of trees can descend to their roots in a cur- 

 rent of constantly ascending sap, and how each bud 

 has a separate existence, so that a sweet and a sour 

 apple may touch each other and yet preserve their 

 peculiar (lualitics unmixed, requires more study than 

 most cultivators bestow on this branch of their pro- 

 fession. 



Is it not wonderful that so many thousands and 

 millions of intelligent persons should eat apples from 

 their childhood to old age, and never try to learn how 

 an apple grows, nor to understand the nature and prop- 

 erties of the things which really make an apple ? The 

 editor of the Horticulturist hit the nail on the head 



when he called attention to the marked deterioration 

 of Seckel pears in the Philadelphia market in conse- 

 quence of neglect to feed the trees on which they 

 grow, while the same kind of fruit grown in the less 

 congenial climate of Boston has recently been greatly 

 improved by wisely adapting the soil to the natural 

 wants of tlie pear tree. We have lately attended 

 a number of agricultural fairs in New York, Massa- 

 chusetts, Maryland, and elsewhere, and more to study 

 fruits and learn what we could from the most success- 

 ful cultivators, than for ;iny other purpose. Mr. Clakk, 

 President of the Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden 

 Agricultural Society, (one of the okk-st in the Con- 

 nect cut valley,) assured us that an apple tree there 

 needed feeding as much as a horse does. The fruit 

 on old apple, pear, and quince trees, which have 

 been neglected, is worthless : while that grown on 

 old trees treated with leaf-mould, rotten dung, ashes, 

 and lime, is fair and large. In no market in the 

 United States can one study the results of good cul- 

 ture and no culture in fruit growing, to better advan- 

 tage than in Washington. The soil in the District 

 of Columbia, and the adjoining country, lacks lime, 

 phosphoric acid, and potash, to a degree that tells 

 againt both forest and fruit trees, as compared with 

 VVestern New York and our own valley of the Gen- 

 esee. We have studied the soils and natural products 

 of both regions with some care, and while conceeciiag 

 the superiority of climate to Washington, the ele- 

 ments of fertility are comparatively scarce in the 

 rocks, drift, alluvium, and mold of that section. But 

 we have never seen land more readily recuperated 

 with lime, ashes, guano, or stable manure. The cli- 

 mate is admirable, and the proportion of sand, clay, 

 and iron, which are the foundation of all soils, is 

 generally all that one needs to secure high and endu- 

 ring productiveness. It is but few things that fruit 

 trees, grape vines, potatoes, grass, and grain, require 

 from the earth, and these man must supply so far as 

 they are lacking. Science alone teaches him what 

 these things are, and those that neglect or despise it, 

 choose darkness rather than li<rht. 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE NEW YORK STATE AG- 

 RICaLTURAL SOCIETY FOR 1850.-VOLUME X. 



It gives us pleasure to witness the steady improve- 

 ment in each volume of the Transactions of the New 

 York State Society, as issued from year to year. 

 The one before us is distinguished by an elaborate 

 and admirably executed " Survey of Seneca county," 

 by J. Dklafii'.ld, Esq., the able and excellent Presi- 

 dent of the Society ; by a paper on " Agricultural 

 Dynamic.-,"' of decided merit, by J. J. Thomas ; and 

 by an unusual amount of coutr.butions fr(>m other re- 

 liable sources of information. If a million copies of 

 the work were distributed over our thirty-one States 

 and live Territories, and generally read, the instruc- 

 tion that would bo imparted could not fail to change 

 the present disastrous policy of the country in the 

 abuse of American Soil. To every one who can pro- 

 cure a copy we earnestly recommend to do so, and 

 not forget to study the analyses and v;ilria!)le re- 

 searches of Dr. Sausburv, chemist to the Society. 

 Mr. Delafield has given a beautiful map of S n- 

 eca county ; illustrations of its Ro^k*, and their Or- 

 ganic Remains; of Grasses; Weeus ; '•irious to 

 Crops; luspcts; and a vast fund of interesting histor- 

 ical, .statistical, geological, chemical, mrteoro!ogi<-al, 

 and strictly practical information. The work will 



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