34 • 



guard against its ravages has required our constant attention for 

 many years past. Our protection has been the old one of tarring. 



The boxes, above mentioned, are furnished with troughs, into 

 ■which a mixture of tar and oil is poured, and this, when renewed 

 suflficiently often, will prevent the ascent of the grub. The great 

 desideratum, however, is a composition so viscid as not to require 

 frequent renewal, and so cheap, as to admit of being generally 

 used. 



The ground about our fruit trees is generally kept in a state of 

 cultivation. Apart from the direct benefit to the trees from such 

 cultivation, we have the additional reason for it in the fact that 

 one of our best crops, as I shall hereafter mention, is grown be- 

 neath the trees. 



We do not perceive that the quantity of our fruit is diminishing 

 or its quality in any way deteriorating, except it may be from the 

 increase of the apple worm or codling moth, Avhich injures a large 

 portion of our apples and pears. Besides this, not to mention the 

 curculio, which by some is said to attack the apple as well as the 

 plum, there is a little worm, the product of a minute fly, found 

 chiefly in tender fleshed Summer apples, which, from its man- 

 ner of feeding — working through the fruit in all directions — 

 threatens to be one of the most destructive and annoying to the 

 fruit-grower. The only preventive which suggests itself to the 

 multiplication of this insect is to gather the fruit immediately after 

 it has fallen, and suffer none to decay on the ground. 



The Spring season is preferred for transplanting most kinds of 

 fruit trees, especially the peach and cherry. Other kinds, if set 

 out in the Fall, should be taken as early as practicable, to give 

 the roots time to form a connection with the soil before the frosts 

 of Winter. Our method of transplanting is the generally approv- 

 ed one of removing the tree with as large a number of the roots 

 as possible, and cutting back the top shoots, to balance somewhat 

 the loss of the roots. Care is taken to have the hole for the 

 tree of good breadth and depth, and the soil put in of the best 

 quality ; as any extra attention at the setting of a tree is amply 

 repaid years after, by its greater growth and productiveness. 

 We consider it important to cultivate the ground around all fruit 

 trees, especially those that are young, or newly transplanted. 

 ]\Iulching, for the first season after transplanting, is, also, very 

 desirable. 



The last of April and the first part of May is generally prefer- 

 red for grafting the pear and apple. The cherry and plum should 

 be taken some weeks earlier. Cleft grafting is our usual method. 



The top of a tree may be changed in one, two or three years. 

 Of late, our practice has been to do the Avhole grafting at one time. 

 In this case, we are careful to cut off only such branches as are 



