100 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



be disturbed in their position and habits ; and you cannot de- 

 scend rudely among their unwieldy and full-grown roots with- 

 out injury to the health, if not danger to the life, of the tree. 

 Careful and repeated spading around the trunk, from three to 

 four feet distance, is, in my opinion, all that is safe or proper, 

 with perhaps occasional deep trenching at the extremity of the 

 roots. 



2d. Appropriate Manuring. — This I regard as the sine qua 

 ?ion, not only in fruit culture, but in all agricultural experi- 

 ment. The earth must be replenished with the appropriate 

 nutrition, and the elements fit and adapted to the growth and 

 development of the plant. No one can expect, with any reason, 

 to grow fine trees or good fruit without abundance of manure; 

 it is vital to their growth and flourishing condition. I freely 

 make the application of manure to my orchard every year, and 

 adapt its different kinds to the different portions of the ground 

 and kind of trees growing thereon, as shall best afford the ap- 

 propriate food. Compost manure and unleached ashes I have 

 used with great success. Every alternate year I spread broad- 

 cast over my lands, barn-yard manure to the amount of twenty- 

 five loads to the acre. Hen dung mixed with loam and vegeta- 

 ble matter is also applied more or less freely around and near 

 the roots of the peach trees; and coal ashes, also, I find very 

 valuable in destroying the worms. As advised, I have applied 

 iron filings about my pear trees. In all other respects my 

 peach and pear trees have been treated like the other trees in 

 the orchard. Frequently the surface of the trunks is scraped 

 thoroughly and well washed in soap and water, as I think with 

 great advantage to their thrifty growth. This year I have 

 placed about the body of the trees meadow muck ; the grass 

 and turf of which it was in part composed were turned under 

 so as to cover the mass — thus forming a warm bed for the roots 

 during winter, and forming a stock of food for the season of 

 rcanimation. 



In the mode of cultivation thus adopted, my trees require but 

 little, if any, watering; and I have found no necessity of mulch- 

 ing — a process under ordinary circumstances beneficial, but, in 

 my case, incompatible with the ground crops. 



No one, I believe, who has tried the experiment, will doubt 



