358 Transactions of the American Institute. 



and placed in sand prepared for their growth, the bud and roots star- 

 ted out from the stem of the leaf. Having been heretofore skeptical 

 on this subject, we are now fullj convinced from our discoveries in 

 the propagating house of the Messrs. Harris, that grape vines cannot 

 only be grown from green wood cuttings but from simple leaves. 



GEO. B. CURTIS, 

 E. B. CURTIS, 

 Propagators Anna Dale Nxirsery. 



The Coming Fkuit-Grower. 

 Mr. Marius Ileighton, Franklin, Portage Co., Ohio. — I noticed in 

 The Tribune of April 28, in your reports, a note from L. E. Rey- 

 nolds of Mendon, 111., about planting apple trees. It seems to me 

 quite discouraging for a young man to think of digging holes three 

 feet deep by three broad for apple trees, while it seems to me unne- 

 cessary. In the spring of 1868 I planted 117 apple trees in less than 

 two days, and in a clover sod at that, and not one of them died. I 

 mulched with rotted clover hay, and at this time I do not know of a 

 more thrifty orchard. They made as much wood the first year as 

 the trees in the nursery where I got them. In 1867 I plowed and 

 planted the orchard to potatoes, and shall do the same this year. I 

 tie them up with rye straw to keep the rabbits and woodchucks from 

 gnawing them, which proves efiectual. The soil is a sandy loam. I 

 was only sixteen years old when I planted the trees, and run in debt 

 for the land and the trees also. I have paid for it all now, by work- 

 ing my garden (one and one-third acres), planting it to melons, Hub- 

 bard squashes, and early Goodrich potatoes, working odd spells when 

 father did not need me. Now, I think there are a great many far- 

 mers' boys who might do the same, provided they do not get discour- 

 aged. When I was fourteen, father gave me the use of a piece of 

 land three rods wide by six and two-third rods long for one year, 

 which I planted to musk-melons, and received sixty-five dollars for 

 them, or at the rate of $520 per acre. The next year I bought my gar- 

 den of one and one-third acres, and planted one-fourth of an acre to 

 musk-melons, and received $150, or at the rate of $600 per acre. I 

 think if farmers would give their sons a small piece of land to till for 

 fruit or gardening, the proportion of men that leave the farm for other 

 pursuits would not be so great as now. I would like to ask one ques- 

 tion, viz.: What manures would the Club recommend for an orchard, 

 too far away to haul barn yard manure for a fertilizer? 



