FRUIT-GARDENING. 37 



VALTJE OF WOOD-ASHES FOR FRUIT-TREES. 



If all aoriculturists and horticulturists were to offer an in- 

 ducement to the inhabitants of large cities to save their 

 ashes in a dry state, they would be supplied not only with a 

 valuable manure, but an antidote for many kinds of insects ; 

 and our citizens would be at less risk from fire, by having a 

 brick vault on their premises for safely keeping them. In 

 England, a private dvveUing is not considered complete with- 

 out an ash-vault ; and a good farmer would dispense Avith his 

 barn rather than be destitute of an ash-house. I have known 

 farmers to supply the cottagers with as much peat as they 

 could burn, on condition of their saving them the ashes ; and 

 there are some that will keep men under pay throughout 

 the year burning peat for the same purpose ; and anything 

 that has passed the fire is so valuable, that a chimney-sweep 

 will frequently clean chimneys for the sake of the soot, which 

 is conveyed miles into the country, and sold at a price suffi- 

 cient to reward the collectors, besides paying all expenses ; 

 even the housekeepers' ashes in cities is a marketable article 

 at all times, bringing from ten to twenty-five cents per 

 bushel when kept dry and clean ; and a guinea a load was 

 formerly the common price in the villages of Berkshire and 

 Hampshire. 



While on this subject, I would urge the importance of a spring 

 dressing of ashes. If cultivators were to prepare turfs from 

 tanners' bark, peat-earth, coal-dust mixed with clay, cow-dung, 

 etc., and get them dried in the summer season, these, by being 

 preserved through the winter, may be burned around fruit- 

 orchards while the trees are in blossom ; and if the fires are pro- 

 perly managed, a smoke may be kept up by heaping on damp 

 litter every night ; this will prove pernicious to such insects as 

 may reside in the trees, and the ashes being spread on the ground, 

 will serve as a means of destruction to others. An orchard 

 thus managed every year, will need no other manure. The 



