12 



vation. The trees are properly trimmed, decayed 

 wood removed, wounds healed up, and the grounds be- 

 neath kept almost constantly under the plow, for the 

 express benefit of the trees. So manifest are the advan- 

 tages of keeping under cultivation the belt of land occu- 

 pied by fruit trees, that I would urge upon all the adop- 

 tion of the practice, It requires labor and manure, but 

 upon what can they be more profitably bestowed? By 

 such a system, fresh vigor may be imparted to many an 

 orchard which is now conspicuous only for its unfruit- 

 fulness. 



Our orchards, however, are sadly deficient in num- 

 ber and extent. They must be recruited, and to do 

 this we must either resort to the nursery men or we 

 must raise the trees ourselves. If we are anxious to 

 commence at once, they should be procured at the ear- 

 liest season of transplanting, and when that is properly 

 done, they should receive yearly as much care as is be- 

 stowed on our cornfields or gardens. If contented to 

 wait a few years, we should, the coming fall, put into the 

 ground the seed to supply ourselves with stocks. By 

 the second or third summer after, they will ba large 

 enough to bud, if this method of propagation be adopted. 



The inducements to enter largely into the cultivation 

 of fruits, it appears to me, are great and obvious. As 

 to summer fruit, what a lamentable deficiency exists a- 

 mong us. I know of but few farms in the county where 

 it is raised in sufficient quantities to supply their own 

 wants. Is it not desirable to have such fruit always at 

 hand in its season, for the children, at least, if not for 

 the older members of the family. Why, it seems to me 

 that a direct temptation to theft is offered to the boys, 

 where summer fruit is so great a rarity. The longing 

 for it is too keen to be resisted, and the supply is to be 

 obtained only by committing trespass on some more fa- 

 vored individual. Multiply fruit trees, and robbery of 

 orchards will be unheard of. We have, to be sure, 

 here and there an apple tree growing in the pasture, 

 the fruit of which has the rare recommendation that it 

 does not set the teeth on edge quite so bad as that of 



