SECRETARY'S REPORT. 223 



of our large cities, where the land upon which the orchard is 

 grown is worth one hundred and fifty dollars or more an acre, 

 profitably, but that it may be extended, with a reason a) )le pros- 

 pect of paying, at some little distance from such places, if the 

 owner is willing to give good cultivation, and to look sharp after 

 the insects. 



And although the location may be more than fifty miles from 

 market, it should not prevent the owner from planting trees, 

 but should rather encourage him to do it, for these reasons : 

 first, there are less insects ; second, if near a railroad, the expense 

 of transportation will not be much, if any, more than it would 

 by horse-power, ten or fifteen miles, which is the usual method 

 of delivery near cities ; and then, perhaps, it is a crop that will 

 pay as well as any that distance from market, and can be 

 transported as easily and safely as any other. 



We often hear the remark that our orchards are fast going to 

 decay. That is true in one sense, for after trees have borne 

 their crops for many years, and have passed their maturity, and 

 in their old age have lost their vigor and fruitfulness, they, like 

 all other products with which this earth is stocked, either animal 

 or vegetable, must travel that same down-hill road to decay ; 

 and we can hurry them along in that path by neglect, both in 

 cultivation and in the destruction of insects, or we can extend 

 their usefulness by an opposite course. Which method we shall 

 pursue is a question every orchardist must answer for himself. 



The habit of deep ploughing in orchards, we think, is detri- 

 mental both to the longevity and health of the trees. Suppose 

 there are not more than eight or ten inches in depth of soil in an 

 orchard, (and that is as deep as the soil of most of our orchards,) 

 and after planting the trees the ground is annually ploughed 

 eight or ten inches deep. Of course all roots of the trees will 

 be destroyed as deep as the plough goes, and whatever roots are 

 left to the trees are in the hard and cold subsoil, driven there 

 against these repeated attempts to get into a more congenial 

 and nutritive soil, and contrary to the nature of the tree, 

 which, if left to its own instincts, will always spread its roots 

 near or within a few inches of the surface of the ground. 

 ■ Will not deep ploughing, then, by forcing the roots of the 

 tree into a hard, wet, cold, and unnatural subsoil, produce dis- 

 ease and decay ? We think it will. And as cultivation and 



