172 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Bull. — I never have met with anything of the kind, nor 

 heard of it before. If it were owing to any defect in the soil I 

 think the remedy would be found in ashes. Cracks in pears are 

 cured thus. I have seen small fruits galled in that way by 

 birds. 



Mr. Capen. — Does Mr. Bull mulch the grape-vine ? 



Mr. Bull. — I do not mulch, for a reason that is very obvious. 

 I want all the heat I can get, and mulching intercepts the heat 

 of the sun at the root. It don't make any difference how dry 

 the season is. If I had a kind of vine that required watering, 

 I would take a cask that was leaky and put in leaves, and on 

 the top of it I would put a shovelful of horse manure or ashes 

 to neutralize the acid, and fill that with water once a week. 

 That would filter so slowly as to feed the vine properly. I don't 

 think I should ever mulch a grape vine under any circumstances. 



Mr. Capen. — My soil is a gravelly knoll, with a sub-soil of fine 

 sand. It always suffers in dry weather. 



Mr. Bull. — In such a soil I should be astonished if anything 

 grew. The sandy loam of my soil never suffers. I would never 

 use the spade about the roots of the grape, but a fork. The 

 ancients never used the spade about the grape ; they used tho 

 old bidens, and stirred the ground with it thoroughly. 



Mr. Leander Wetherell, of Boston. — During the dry season 

 of last summer I visited the garden of a gentleman in Saxonville, 

 which is on a light, sandy loam. Everywhere around his garden 

 the leaves of the trees and plants were shrunk and withered ; 

 but I noticed in his garden everything looked green and fresh. 

 I observed on his grounds, especially where the pear trees were, 

 the ground covered with mulch. The gardener said that witl> 

 out it he would have no fruit. The pear trees were well fruited, 

 and were ripening their fruit finely ; as he maintained, under 

 the influence of the mulching. I think the pear and apple tree 

 need mulching, but I do not think the grape needs it. 



One word with regard to covering vines. I visited a planta- 

 tion of raspberries and blackberries at Oak Hill, in Newton, and 

 the man who was cultivating them had been remarkably success- 

 ful with all that kind of fruit. He said his mode of cultivation 

 was, to lay them down and cover them lightly with soil in the 

 fall, and bring them up again in the spring. He ascribed his 

 great success in raising these two kinds of fruit to his mode of 



