107 



mend some hitherto untried plan to renovate or beautify the 

 earth's surface. 



Artificial planting and culture of forest trees has been left too 

 much to the man of fortune or to those of decided artistic tastes. 

 By want of judicious observation on the part of otherwise practi- 

 cal people, a great many serious blunders have occurred. The 

 proper season to sow the seeds of forest trees, the proper modes 

 of raising the seedhngs, the proper time to transplant them, the 

 soils adapted to them, have been too often the tediously slow work 

 of experience, and hence repeated failures. Many farmers are, 

 therefore, deterred ; but would they take some slight notice of, or 

 read some treatise on the subject, such errors would be few. 

 Much of this work could be done by the junior members of the fam- 

 ily, who are to i-eap the most benefits hereafter. And then, again, 

 from what the observation of many years has shown, I am con- 

 vinced that there is no farm so barren that could not be im- 

 mensely improved by attention to tree plantings. There is no 

 reason w^hy farmers should not be arboriculturists as well as the 

 men of fortune and of taste. Why leave this branch of industry 

 and profit to them ; and why not learn from their experiments 

 what costs the farmer nothing, but brings him in sure results of 

 profit? True, every farmer is interested in orcharding, but 

 arboriculture belongs to him likewise. Indeed, the arboricultural 

 art addresses him rather the more of the two pursuits, and he 

 might better plant shade and timber trees than fruit trees. The 

 orchard, in its wider sense of a place for fruit growing, belongs 

 rather to the horticulturist than to the farmer. The usual and 

 necessary avocations of the farm cannot afford the requisite time 

 for care of the choicer apples, pears and peaches, which are the 

 best fitted for the market, as the market now-a-days is expected 

 to be ; and while the insect foes have so much increased in num- 

 bers and in their ravages, more demand still is made of the farm- 

 er's time to keep them in check. A few trees could supply the 

 family ; but to raise market fruit has become an occupation of its 

 own. Even the apple trees should have no ordinary care, would 

 they pay their way well and make a return of all their possi- 

 bilities. A very few acres of land, kept in excellent heart by 

 careful manuring, by judicious pruning, by washing the trunks 

 with alkali to destroy vermin, in fine, by the art of fruit culture, 

 would, if near an available market-town or city, yield a greater re- 

 turn than farms of much wider area. And these fcAv highly cul- 

 tivated acres would aiford the best sorts of apples, the choicest 

 kinds of pears, and the most delicious cherries ; yet all these are 

 the results of a horticultural rather than an agricultural depart- 

 ment of industrial toil. I repeat, then, that trees requiring such 

 attention do not belong to the farmer, for he could not spend the 

 time, bear the cost, nor devote the attention, if he depends, as it is 



