FRUITS AND FLOWERS. 321 



roots of some of the trees was such, tliat the action of the frost 

 has since been to lift them out. The pears on quince I placed so 

 that the junction of the pear with the stock, should be two or 

 three inches below the surface, but after the soil had become 

 settled, the point of junction was sometimes above the surface. 

 I have since endeavored, in planting, to bury the junction four 

 inches deep, after the soil has settled. 



The manures used were leached ashes, coalpit bottom, Mapes' 

 improved super-phosphate of lime, and woollen waste ; each 

 being used alone and in combination with the otliers. They 

 were mixed with the soil at the time of setting, and a few rows 

 were left without manure. I have not been able up to the 

 present time to trace the influence of either of these substances 

 with any distinctness. 



The cultivation in 1854 was simply once hoeing and after- 

 ward pulling the weeds and leaving them on the surface. In 

 1855, the whole was ploughed and planted with potatoes, with 

 guano and super-phosphate of lime in the hill. In 1856, it was 

 again planted with potatoes, and manured in the hill with horn 

 shavings and leached ashes. The trees received a pailful each 

 of strong liquid manure from the barn cellar. The present 

 season the trees were treated with the same application, and 

 the crop is cucumbers for pickling, manured in the hill. This 

 crop is a very good one for the purpose, as it is not at all an 

 exhausting one, and it admits of ploughing and cultivating a 

 number of times in the early part of the season before planting. 



The growth of the trees has been fair throughout the differ- 

 ent seasons, the average since the first year having been per- 

 haps, twelve inches of new wood for each year. The best 

 growth was in 1856, when shoots in many cases exceeded four 

 feet in length. The present season gave promise of an equal 

 increase, but when the orchard generally had made from six to 

 ten inches of new wood, the foliage and small twigs became cov- 

 ered with honey dew. This excretion was at first a limpid, watery 

 fluid, having a sweet and slightly sickish taste. It became 

 inspissated in a short time and then appeared much like honey. 

 It attracted thousands of flies, bees, wasps and other insects, 

 that feasted upon it with much avidity. At the same time 

 many of the leaves, especially those upon the new growth, 

 dropped off; all extension ceased, and the remaining leaves and 



