338 Tbaxsactioxs of the American Institute. 



tice shallow culture. Gardeners and pomologists all know that 

 stunted plants of all kinds are very likely to become lousy ; in fact, 

 this is one of the sure signs of poor, shallow soils. If our corres- 

 pondent had not been such a prominent advocate of shallow culture, 

 he would not have been so sure of the cause of the disease and insects 

 named. 



Keglected Apple Oechakds. 

 The regular paper of the day was on this subject, and was read by 

 Dr. J. Y. C. Smith, ex-Mayor of Boston : Melancholy wailings have 

 often been heard at the Farmers' Club, over the sickly condition of 

 apple orchards in all the northern States. Certain it is, the trees have 

 a shabby appearance, and the small quantity of fruit they produce 

 in their latter days, compared with their former fecundity, has 

 become a topic of grave agricultural interest. Unfortunately, an 

 impression has been extensively propagated that apple trees have 

 become fatally diseased, which accounts for their small yield of 

 imperfectly developed fruit. Another cause of deterioration is 

 charged to insects, so multiplied that their extermination is repre- 

 sented from some quarters to be hopeless. We believe there is 

 unnecessary alarm, and that neither of those causes are so prominent 

 or beyond control as frequently represented from respectable sources. 

 Good apples in abundance, fair and cheap too, were abundant thirty 

 or forty years ago. The trees were then vigorous ; they are now 

 old and neglected. They ought to bear till they are nearly 100 

 years of age, without material falling oif ; and they would, were the same 

 amount of care bestowed upon them which is usually given to them 

 when young. Pruning is quite neglected. That is a medicine quite 

 indispensable to a healthy condition of the tree. In their youth the top 

 is open and free, so that air and sunlight play freely over the branches and 

 leaves. As they advance in growth the limbs multiply till, if allowed, the 

 top becomes a compact network of outshooting limbs, interlaced and 

 betangled, stiff, resisting, and almost thorny. Respiration as well as 

 evaporation from the surface of the busli is thus interrupted, and in 

 consequence of the denseness of the licdge, the sun's rays can not 

 enter to exert their appropriate influence on those parts, quite as 

 important in vegetable economy as on the bodies of animals or man. 

 With such a condition vermin find secure burrowing places. Thgir 

 destructive agency, by sucking the circulating sap, the vital fluid of 

 all trees, wounding delicate tissues near dividing branches, where the 



