THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 289 



out of which it is impossible to shut a certain muck- 

 yard element of stained liquor. On the bank of this 

 I am fixing a pump, and I propose to give the potatoes 

 a good soaking therefrom by the help of watering-cans. 

 It will be a work of time ; but, as Sutton wisely prints 

 in his catalogue injunctions to swede-growers, *' With- 

 out pains no gains." The root which produced in my 

 man's garden over thirteen pounds of potatoes was 

 indulged with one deep drink during the drought. 

 Another plan I am about to adopt in my orchard was 

 suggested in the Bath and West of England Journal 

 for 1859, but which I will quote, as it may not have 

 fallen in the way of some, while others may have 

 passed it over. An American apple-grower writes : — 

 " For several years past I have been experimenting on 

 the apple, having an orchard of 2,000 bearing New- 

 town pippin trees. I found it very unprofitable to wait 

 for what is termed the ' bearing year,' and it has been 

 my aim to assist nature, so as to enable the trees to 

 bear every year. I have noticed that from the exces- 

 sive productiveness of this tree it requires the inter- 

 mediate year to recover itself, to extract from the earth 

 and atmosphere the materials to enable it to produce 

 again. This it is not able to do unassisted by art, while 

 it is loaded with fruit, and the intervening year is lost. 

 If, however, the tree is supplied with proper food it 

 will bear every year; at least such has been the result 

 of my experiments. Three years ago, in April, I 

 scraped all the rough bark from the stems of several 

 thousand trees in my orchard, and washed all the 

 trunks and stems within reach with soft soap, trimmed 

 out all the branches that crossed each other early in 

 June, and painted the wounded part with white lead, 



