1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



459 



dark blue, are most beautiful. The double Holly- 

 hock, especially the rose-colored, is really deserv- 

 ing of mention. 



Again, for variety, we have Monkshood, blue, 

 Barometer, blue. White Immortal, and Fall Phlox, 

 with Pinks of various kinds, including the Pico- 

 lee, a fine bedder. 



Last, but by no means least, the Pansies, which 

 are often in bloom before snow leaves the ground 

 in spring, and after it has fallen in autumn or 

 early winter, should it partially thaw, I having 

 picked them as late as December. Of these we 

 have an almost endless variety, than which per- 

 haps nothing we have is more frequently admired. 



I have thus hastily given the names of some- 

 thing like the number mentioned, of biennials 

 and perennials as spscified. Annuals I will not 

 now refer to, except to say that for late blooming 

 there are many most desirable and quite hardy, of 

 which should it be desired, I will speak at some 

 future time. 



If "Mary," or any of your readers, should wish 

 to obtain any of these, or other ])lants or seeds, 

 and will give me their address, I can, perhaps, 

 help them to obtain whatever they wish, at con- 

 siderable less than usual prices, and offer some 

 suggestions that may prove useful to inexperi- 

 enced florists, should they be thus. A letter di- 

 rected to Box 23, Richmond, Mass., care of the 

 postmaster, will reach one who for the present 

 will be known only as Louie, 



Aug. 14, 1860. 



For the New England Farmer. 



best prepabatiow fok the matfue- 

 IjSTg of dwarf pear trees. 



My Dear Sir : — A correspondent in your pa- 

 per of the 11th inst. inquires for "the best pre- 

 paration sold for the manuring of dwarf pears, 

 peaches," &c., making a very difficult question for 

 any one to answer to his advantage, unless they 

 have more knowledge of his soil than he has seen 

 fit to communicate. For instance, it cannot be 

 supposed that the same "preparation" Avould show 

 equal benefits on a sandy or gravelly soil, that it 

 would on a loamy one, or that the applications to 

 a loam Avould produce the same effect, and to the 

 same extent, that it would on a stiff clay. 



In materia medica, it is an established fact, that 

 the same remedy will not apply to all diseases. It 

 is no less true that in the same disease, when the 

 type varies, the prescription must vary to meet 

 it. So the eonstitutional temperaments and hab- 

 its of men vary, and the medicines that may be 

 salutary to one, may be death to another. There 

 are considerations without number to be regard- 

 ed in the healing art, and minutia there, are 

 worthy of close attention. 



Climate, like constitutional temperament, has 

 close connection with individual health and com- 

 fort, so that not only a change of food is often 

 found necessary to the success of the individual 

 who travels, but it must have a different prepara- 

 tion in widely difierent localities. If the Esqui- 

 maux should change his living to that of tropical 

 fruits, it would probably be fatal to him at once. 

 Let him change his residence for one in the burn- 

 ing zone, and live as the natives live there, and a 

 more speedy fate would overtake him. The air 



and his diet would both be averse to his organs 

 of respiration and digestion, which have grown 

 and matured for a more bracing air and less rap- 

 id digestive powers, so that stronger food is neces- 

 sary to meet his demands. 



The native of mountainous regions, where the 

 air is always fresh and the water gurgling from 

 the rock always pure, in the valley finds a want 

 of those elements so sustaining to physical vigor. 

 The damp fogs engendered with miasma from 

 stagnant or sluggish waters, prey upon his vitals, 

 while those who have inhaled them through life, 

 scarcely feci their influence. His constitution is 

 not adapted to the atmosphere, and it becomes 

 ruinous to life and health. 



Vegetables, trees and plants, like men and ani- 

 mals, have constitutions and physical adaptations 

 to certain circumstances. The rush that luxuri- 

 ates in mire, will not grow on the dry soil of the 

 hill-side. The oak that assumes a giant's form 

 among trees on the mountain, would pine and die 

 in the low morass or shaking quagmire. 



To cultivate his fruit trees, then, your corres- 

 pondent has only to find what they lack in climate 

 and constituents of the soil. And first, the soil it- 

 self. 



Once, and for many long, beautiful years, out 

 New England soil was well adapted to fruit grow- 

 ing, as the old orchards, now going into the decay 

 of age, so faithfully testify. But two hundred 

 years of exhausting culture has impoverished this 

 soil. AVTiy should it not? What acre of tilled 

 land has not had many times in value in produce 

 carried away from it and sold ? How little of the 

 price of these crops has been returned to the 

 land to renumerate for the exhaustion it has suf- 

 fered ? Man who plowed and sowed, and gathered 

 into the garner, has been too careful to absorb all 

 the profits in payment for his labor, while poor 

 mother earth, compelled to toil on to gratify his 

 pride, has been stinted, year after year, in her 

 daily food. It is in no way strange, that with such 

 management, the strength and beauty of youth 

 have fled from her countenance, that toil-worn 

 and weary, she has become hard and unyielding, 

 that the very pores of her surface are clogged, so 

 that the surplus moisture cannot be throv/n off, 

 only as the slow process of evaporation absorbs. 

 In a word, the soil of New England has, to an 

 alarming extent, been roughly, shamefully man- 

 aged, and the first and best preparation to be sold 

 for manuring it for fruit trees, that we have ever 

 tried, or can recommend, is steel, — well tempered, 

 sharp, polished steel. Our mode of application 

 would be to put the point of this steel, down into 

 the earth so low and so sure as to open water 

 courses sufficient to take off all superfluous mois- 

 ture. This done, we would give it another appli- 

 cation, and that would be to probe the whole sur- 

 face to be set to trees to such a depth as to loosen 

 the earth eight, ten or twelve inches deeper than 

 any plow has ever penetrated. No matter if it is 

 hard pan or clay, even. Bring up and expose it 

 to the atmosphere, and if the land is well drained, 

 it will make a good, friable soil, one that trees or 

 any other plants will delight to thi'ow theii* roots 

 abroad in. 



We have no doubt that many of the failures in 

 fruit tree culture at the present time, arise from 

 neglecting a proper preparation of the soil by 

 thorough drainage and deep pulverization, and 



