424 Transactions of the American Institute. 



tree pear tree, which was healthy ten years ago, and stood sixty- 

 five feet high, the top speading over seventy-five feet around. The 

 body was ten and a half feet in circumference around the smallest 

 place below the limbs. It was brought from Pittsburg and planted 

 here in 1804, by Mr. Occletree. It stood alone, grew rapidly, and 

 in 1837 bore one hundred jmd forty bushels of pears. Four years 

 ago several of the principal branches were broke off by a storm, 

 and the remaining one, although it fruited last year, is fast going 

 to decay. 



LIME ON LIMESTONE LAND. 



Mr. David Howard, South Shaftsbury, Vt. — Is lime of much 

 benefit for limestone soils? 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — I find that it does more good on this 

 kind of land than on any other. I have tried it on my place, 

 where there is no limestone, and it is of no benefit whatever. 



Mr. P. T. Quinn. — I use burnt-shell lime in preference to any 

 ether. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — Lime will do well on retentive sour 

 soils, but not on sandy land. 



Dr. Israel Jarvis. — On the sea coast lime is more effective on 

 account of the salt, than in the interior. 



CULTIVATION OF CRANBERRIES. 



Mr. A. HoUister, Hollisten^ille, Wayne county, Pa. — I give you 

 my mode of raising cranberries. The land is a narrow neck 

 between two small streams, with high banks on either side, and 

 was never plowed. It is a sward and gravel subsoil, covered with 

 from four to six inches of laurel and hemlock muck. I got the 

 plants from a natural marsh of wild cranberries, by cutting them 

 out in large sods and separating them and setting about a half 

 dozen vines in a place three feet each way, by striking into the 

 muck and inserting the roots in the soil beneath. I think the 

 muck protects the roots from drouth, and keeps the weeds from 

 growing. I have three-quarters of an acre which I cleared from 

 heavy hemlock timber, and burned the ground over to kill the 

 laurel roots, in 1862, and planted about one-third of the piece in 

 the spring of 1863, and the remainder in the spring following. 

 The first set now covers the ground; they have had no attention 

 except keeping the briars and dwarf-elder out, which are the only 

 things which come up through the muck. I gathered thirty bushels 

 last gathering, notwithstanding a great part of the land is covered 



