PEACH AND THE PEAR. 285 



200 lbs. to 400 lbs. per acre, or from 5 to 20 lbs. to 

 each tree. 



Never crop your orchard when blighting. You may- 

 throw a standard orchard into sod and top dress the 

 land, and sometimes check blight ; or sow to clover as 

 before recommended, and plough under, the next June a 

 year, and watch the result. My objection to lime here 

 is, that, as a top dressing, it, in the absence of potash, is 

 taken up too freely by the trees for their own good, and 

 in sod can't act rapidly enough to liberate the potash 

 naturally in the sand and stones of the soil. 



A Dwarf orchard needs the very highest culture, and 

 should scarcely ever be thrown into sod. The most I 

 would do, would be to seed to clover in the spring, and 

 then plough under, the next June a year, and watch it. 

 Remember, in pruning diseased fruit trees, always to 

 observe the rule I gave when speaking of pruning 

 diseased peach trees ; apply to your knife or saw, one of 

 the germicides there given, before leaving one tree to go 

 to another. Indeed, in pear blight, you ought to 

 thoroughly disinfect your instrument, not only between 

 trees, but even in going from one limb to another, so 

 contagious is this disease. One word more, and I close 

 this subject. A grower has in his yard a favorite pear 

 tree ; this tree grows in sod, continuously, and bears him 

 abundant crops of luscious fruit, and receives no care of 

 cultivation, whatever, and never shows signs of blight in 



