46 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



con, in regard to chemical fertilizers, that have been analyzed in 

 the laboratory of the chemist, still they have been pronounced by 

 many to be spurious and a humbug. Nevertheless, " let the test 

 of intelligent experience be our most faithful and unerring guide," 

 and let our fruit trees "be our most reliable laboratories," and 

 their fair and beautiful fruit " our best and most instructive ex- 

 positors" in regard to Fertilizers. 



Fruit trees take nothing from the soil or air, save water, light 

 and heat, which they absorb, till they are in leaf, and the spongioles 

 (mouths of the rootlets) are formed, which is about the first of 

 June in Maine. The above fact is attested by cuttings, that get 

 in leaf before they form their roots. They form callus (during 

 the process of leaving) showing a protruding fleshy ring between 

 the bark and wood, and then send out their fibrous roots. Thus 

 the leaves and fibrous roots are formed from the organic matter 

 stored up in the bark and buds of the previous year. Conse- 

 quently, if grass is permitted to grow under the trees, they get 

 nothing but the orts with which to grow and mature their fruit, 

 wood, bark, buds, and latent organic matter in early autumn, with 

 which to wake up and start into life again the following spring. 



Planting young Fruit Trees. If your land is flattish, and a little 

 sloping, and you do not feel able to thoroughly underdrain, lay oflF 

 the ground into divisions of equal width, as the distances between 

 the intended rows of trees, and in the direction of the natural 

 drainage or slope of the field ; then by repeated plowings, each 

 time turning the furrows towards the centre, gather the soil into 

 broad ridges, on the crown of which set the trees, and "dig no 

 deep post holes" to put the roots of your trees in, but let some one 

 hold up the tree, spreading out all the fibrous roots, then dump a 

 part of a cart load of rich soil from the forest or from some other 

 source. You need have no fears in building up around the trunks 

 of trees two or three feet, for fibrous roots will soon come from 

 the trunk thus covered and luxuriate in the rich soil thus applied, 

 and it will also keep mice and borers from committing depreda- 

 tions on your trees. By this method you rapidl^^ get rid of the 

 surface water, and also a portion of that from the subsoil, and 

 obtain a deep, mellow soil 



This method will be found preferable to the old one of digging 

 large, deep holes, down into the hard, retentive subsoil (no matter 

 what may be their diameter) and half filling them up with surface 



