263 Wash for Fruit Trees. 



canes procured from the woods of New Hampshire, and the 

 trial was, for the time being, abandoned altogether. A year 

 or two later, a cultivator from Dorchester exhibited some 

 very fine fruit of the blackberry, at the rooms of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, in Boston, and I immediately 

 procured from him a few bushes, and, from that time to the 

 present, I have succeeded in producing good fruit from this 

 stock. I have now in cultivation several seedlings raised 

 from this Dorchester stock that have produced fine fruit, but 

 as yet, none better than the original, and the latter are no 

 larger or finer than I have gathered, with my own hands, from 

 the wild bushes in the woods in New Hampshire, or this 

 vicinity. The variety I now raise is the one I originally 

 received from Dorchester, and this is the only one I have 

 seen cultivated successfully. 



I have planted the bushes in various positions on my 

 grounds, and they have uniformly done well ; but I think 

 the largest berries and best crops have been produced on 

 patches near the street, having the wash from the road 

 passing over them. My ground is a strong loam, inclining 

 to clay, over a subsoil of yellow stiff clay. I have given 

 them no particular care, spreading a light coat of stable or 

 pig-pen manure over them once a season, usually in the au- 

 tumn. In regard to pruning, I have sometimes cut the tops 

 off of the longest canes, so as to make them stand without 

 stakes, and occasionally have staked them up ; but I have 

 found those left to trail on or near the ground have done 

 best, and I now uniformly allow them to grow in this 

 manner. 



Wash for Fruit Trees. — I am, at this season of the year, 

 frequently asked what is the best wash for fruit trees, both 

 trunk and limbs. The following has given me the best satis- 

 faction of all the various mixtures I have tried, and I have 

 used no other for at least twelve years : — I use a large vessel, 

 say a tub, made by sawing a molasses hogshead in two, at 

 the bung, which will hold about seventy gallons ; in this tub 

 I put a wheelbarrow load of yellow clay, and an equal quan- 

 tity of fresh cow manure, covering it with water. After 



