1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



189 



peeled in June, and seasoned ; young chestnut 

 lasts better than old oak — of thrifty growth, it is 

 quite superior. Benjamin Willard. 



For the New England Farmer. 



BETHOSPECTIVE NOTES. 



Wisdom for Winter. — At page 59 of current 

 volume of the Farmer, there are some excellent 

 hints for the preservation of health and the pro- 

 motion of comfort — hints so evidently the pro- 

 duct of a mind well stored with wisdom and the 

 best lessons of experience, and so well suited 

 for use in winter weather, as to make the title 

 — Wisdom for Winter — very appropriate indeed. 

 Of the value of one of them, my own experience, 

 together with the results of some inquiries as to 

 the experience of others, enables me to speak 

 with confidence. I refer to that counsel which 

 forbids the wearing of India-rubber boots (over 

 shoes included, I presume) in cold, dry weather. 

 For rubber boots or over-shoes in wet, rainy 

 weather, or in a slopjiy condition of the streets 

 and roads, it may be difficult to find any prefera- 

 ble substitute ; but in dry weather, however cold 

 it may be, rubbers are liable to objections of so 

 much weight as to make it very unwise to con- 

 tinue the practice of wearing them. The weight- 

 iest of these objections is derived from the fact 

 that these articles confine the perspiration of the 

 feet so much as to render the stockings more or 

 less damp, according to the length of time that 

 the rubbers are worn. The present discomfort 

 from this cold bath of condensed vapor is but a 

 small matter, when compared with the injury to 

 the health which ultimately, sooner or later, re- 

 sults from this "going contrary to nature." As 

 an example of this injury, I may state that a case 

 of incipient consumption, some years ago, became 

 an object of special inquiry as to the cause which 

 might have produced it, inasmuch as the young 

 ■woman was not hereditarily predisposed to con- 

 sumption, nor a likely subject for such a disease. 

 After much investigation, it was discovered that 

 this patient had been in the practice of going out 

 among the neighbors to spin, and that finding 

 rubber over-shoes the most comfortable and con- 

 venient article for her feet while spinning, she 

 wore them the greater part of the day for a whole 

 summer. This led to taking cold upon cold, and 

 thus to settled consumption. 



Sheltered Farms. — In the Farmer, Feb., 

 1861, on page 59, I find an article with the above 

 title in which it is alleged that the orchards in 

 Michigan have suff'ered severely since they have 

 been deprived of the natural protection aff"orded 

 by the primitive forests, when the country was new 

 and the clearings were small. I have no doubt 

 that the shelter of a belt of timber is of consider- 

 able value in protecting orchards from injurious 

 exposures to piercing winds ; but if any one should 

 get the impression from the article referred to, 

 or any other of similar tenor, that premature decay 

 or death in fruit trees is more frequently owing 

 to want of shelter than to any other cause what- 

 ever, or to all other causes together, I verily be- 

 lieve that such an impression would be, not only 

 erroneous, but also pernicious by its tendency to 

 mislead. This tendency I have seen in actual op- 

 eration, leading, or rather misleading neighbors 



to attribute the death or premature decay of their 

 fruit trees to severe cold weather, when but for 

 this en-oneous impression, they might have carried 

 their search after the cause of the death or decay 

 of their trees still farther, and might, too, at 

 length, have arrived at the truth in regard to said 

 cause — which truth, like truth on all other sub- 

 jects, would have proved of far more benefit to 

 all concerned than any error, however ingenious 

 or however plausible. In the case referred to, it 

 seemed strange that any man should persist in 

 attributing the death of his trees to exposure to 

 cold, when the fact was well known that in other 

 orchards around him there had been no death the 

 same season in any of the trees, although in point 

 of shelter, these orchards were not, in the least, 

 any better protected than his own. The cause of 

 the death of the fruit trees in this case, as it is, 

 we believe, in a large majority of similar cases, 

 consisted in the fact that the growth of the trees 

 had been unduly stimulated by excessive manur- 

 ing, and that their constitution and fabric had 

 thus been "tendered," made delicate and feeble, 

 so that degrees of cold which did no harm to 

 trees more healthy and hardy in their growth, 

 killed outright those that had been forced into an 

 unnaturally rapid and luxuriant development. 

 Several observations in cases of premature death 

 and decay in orchards around me, with close in- 

 vestigation as to the causes, have led me to the 

 belief that most of such cases may be traced to 

 the deterioration in the constitutional vigor and 

 in the fabric of the trees produced by a too rapid 

 and unnatural growth, which growth is itself the 

 result of excessive manuring, and of a foolish 

 making haste to bring the tree into bearing. 



Now, the practical importance of what I have 

 been endeavoring to present to the minds of the 

 readers of this paper consists in the tendency of 

 these considerations to help those concerned to 

 discover a cause of premature decay and death in 

 orchards, which seems but too little known or 

 suspected as a cause. The cause being discovered, 

 the eff"ect may be made to cease. I would be mis- 

 understood if it were supposed that I consider 

 shelter or protection from cold winds of lit- 

 tle or no value. It is of value ; but of much 

 gi-eater value is an unforced, healthy, and hardy 

 growth of those trees, to which we and our fami- 

 lies are to look for many years in the future, for 

 a steady supply of those wholesome and palatable 

 fruits wherewith our Father in Heaven has been 

 pleased to bless His human family, and most 

 richly those of them who have searched to know 

 His laws in regard to such matters, and who have 

 conformed their practice to these heaven-imposed 

 conditions and requirements. 



It may be difficult for some to believe that the 

 large and yearly manurings which are given to 

 many orchards during the first four or five years of 

 their growth, are in reality the cause of premature 

 death and decay. I had at one time, some dif- 

 ficulty in believing that such forcing of the growth 

 of young fruit trees by extra manuring, could 

 make the wood and other portions of the trees 

 so tender as to be unable to resist the hardships 

 of winter winds and of summer scorching sun- 

 shine ; but this difficulty at length gave way, af- 

 ter being shown an orchard in which about one- 

 half of the trees had died in less than twenty 

 years from the time of planting them, and for 



