No. 151.] 501 



ploughing. In making fine fruit we want more root and less top! A 

 tree so pruned is more healthy, lives longer. A man who understands 

 the matter, can tell in a forest, by the limbs, where the roots are! 

 The roots of the lower limbs lie nearest the surface of the ground, 

 and these always suffer first in a drought. You will see it in apple, 

 pear, plum, &c., the fruit on the lower limbs always suffer most from 

 a drought. It is a curious sight in many of our neglected orchards, 

 to see the suckers on the limbs, filling the whole tree with a mass of 

 thick brush. These trees cannot have proper fruit. One cannot get 

 into them to clear off worm nests; and a man that will not clear off 

 these c.terpillar nests I don't want to know. If he was the only 

 man in the world it would not be quite so bad, but he provides an 

 invading army of worms for all his neighbors. I destroyed on my 

 trees last year about twenty thousand nests of worms. I have de- 

 stroyed all for twelve years past; still my neighbors are plentifully 

 supplied with them. Their butterflies come in thousands to my farm, 

 as they fly for miles from their locality; they are very beautiful in- 

 sects, but I object to their peopling my orchards with catterpillars. 

 The culture of all good fruit i; valuable near this great city; more 

 valuable than other crops. The worms kill off one-half of our fruits, 

 sometimes two-thirds. We must prune well, scrape off the moss 

 and all the loose bark with a dull hoe or an iron, then wash the tree 

 well with a solution of pot-ash, one pound to six gallons of water, 

 or with soft soap so that it may even run down the branch to the 

 ground, and then dose the vermin. The larvae of insects are destroy- 

 ed by these washings. Plough the orchard well; hoe well about the 

 roots of the trees. I have never suffered from the canker worm while 

 some of my neighbors had their orchards destroyed by them. Some 

 of those orchards had not been ploughed for twenty years. Plough 

 them every year, or at least every other year, or dig up the ground 

 well around them. Orchards require manuring. I have tried many 

 kinds of manure. The dung of the horse is best for apple trees, per- 

 haps owing to the phosphorus contained in it. The bark of trees 

 growing vigorously often becomes too tight, especially about the 

 body of the tree. In such cases I cut incisions through it on the north 

 side, not down to the wood, but through the hardest part of the bark. 

 This relieves the tree. If this be neglected I have seen trees choked 

 to death by that tightness of the bark. Make these incisions in May 

 or June. Do this on apple, pear, cherry, plum and apricot trees. It 

 should be done every two years at least. Some persons seeing the 

 trees dead, said it was caused by blight; some said by lightning; 

 but they were literally choked to death. 



