STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43 



men and women who dealt with no stinted hand, but with the 

 highest culture possible ? The first lesson to be learned, is the 

 cultivation of less areas, less misapplied labor, less spreading out 

 so thin in our agricultural pursuits ; unless we have the means, 

 or abundant fertilizers. Second — We should learn the folly of 

 planting out too many fruit trees, and neglecting to take suitable 

 care of them, as thousands do. And .such men should learn and 

 remember that fruit trees young or old, are not locomotive like 

 their animals, but tied to the earth in a hungiy, starving condition, 

 with but few elements in the soil on which to feed, with wet feet, 

 on a retentive subsoil. And if their fruit trees had the power of 

 utterance or could express their necessities and hunger, (as do 

 their animals if thus tied) there would be so much mourning, 

 lowing and bleating as to excite the sympathies of every philan- 

 thropist in the land. And had I time, I might portray the condi- 

 tion of thousands of old apple and pear trees, that are in the saoae 

 woful condition as above described, (otherwise good trees) that 

 might be cut back and grafted to good fruit and be made to bear 

 almost indefinitely, if cared for and suitably fed. 



We should also count the cost in planting large oi'chards. One 

 tree well cared for is worth a dozen or even a hundred without 

 care. A man would be very unwise to buy a dozen pigs to feed 

 when he had not enough for three. I have a number of trees that 

 are well cared for, which last autumn paid me the interest of $300 

 per tree, or $18 each; and one of them was an old hollow tree, 

 propped at every point of the compass to assure its safety when 

 the wind and storms are tempestuous, showing that old trees, (if 

 not too far gone) can be rejuvenated by proper culture, cutting 

 back and pruning or thinning out the boughs annually, and may 

 be made to forget the habit of bearing only alternate years and 

 become annual bearers — and the fruit can be increased in size 

 from two to three and four inches in diameter. Now the rule in 

 mathematics always holds good, that spheres are to each other as 

 the cubes of their diameters; consequently, if you increase an 

 apple that is two inches to three inches in diameter, you gain 237 

 per cent. ; if it is increased to four inches you gain 700 per cent, 

 on the size of your fruit, while your fruit will sell for double and 

 find a ready market. 



The Roxbury Russet is known to be a medium sized apple, yet 

 I have attested the above fact by high cultivation, increasing it 

 from two inches in diameter to three and three-quarter inches, — 



