220 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



for $1280 ; 6B bushels of pears for $178 ; 50 

 barrels of cider for $100, and currant plants sold 

 for $120. The whole amounting to $5010. Then 

 there should be added to this the value of fruits 

 used in two large families, which the speaker said 

 should be estimated at $150, and premiums re- 

 ceived by Mr. Clapp during the year for fruits ex- 

 hibited, amounting to $G4 ; making the product 

 of his orchard for last year to be worth $5230. 



The speaker said that Mr. Clapp considered 

 the Gravenstein the most profitable apple, and 

 the Williams the next. He kept his trees well 

 pruned, and generally pruned in the months of 

 March and April before the swelling of the bud. 

 The soil of his orchard was black and yellow 

 loam, with a gravelly svibsoil well drained, and 

 this draining the speaker thought was the great- 

 est element in his success. Mr. Clapp, said he, 

 plants his currants in rows six feet apart, and ap- 

 plies manure in the fall, preferring well rotted 

 and composted stable and barn manures. He 

 thinks currants do better in the shade if not too 

 dense, as so planted the bush does not shed its 

 leaf so early. He uses the rooted slips. Col. 

 Stone said that Mr. Clapp did not retail his fruit, 

 but had the advantage of being near the market. 

 He raised his currants under his apple trees, and 

 by attending to his currants he favored his ap- 

 ples. The seedling that Mr. Clapp had produced 

 from the Bartlett, Col. Stone considered far supe- 

 rior to the original pear, and he thought it would 

 be of immense benefit, as there was always trou- 

 ble in transplanting the Bartlett trees. He thought 

 there was no more difficulty in raising pears than 

 apples if moderate care was used, and he closed 

 his remarks by warning persons setting out trees 

 not to set them too low, as it was better to hare 

 them two inches too high than one too low. 



Mr. Frazier, of Watertown, said he had an 

 orchard which for a few years past had not been 

 productive, and although the trees grew, the fruit 

 did not. His neighbors had advised him to cut 

 half the trees down, on the ground that they were 

 too crowded, but he scarcely liked to do this, and 

 he came to the meeting for information. Last 

 fall he cut down a Baldwin tree, and it was per- 

 fectly sound, and it was so fine a tree that he 

 could not cut down any more. He wished to 

 know whether the bark bursting on the trunk and 

 large limbs was caused by a defect at the root. 

 His trees were 18 years old, and his land had 

 been in grass five years. 



The Chairman said that the land of Mr. Clapp 

 previously referred to was exceedingly fertile, and 

 the trees very large, the limbs interlacing each 

 other. The trees, he thought, were 30 or 35 feet 

 apart. He would recommend Mr. Frazier to 

 plow his orchard with a light plow, and manure 

 the surface, and he would predict a full crop. 



Mr. Sheldon being called on, said that, when 

 first he commenced planting, he put his trees 35i 

 feet apart, then 30 feet, and latterly 25 feet, and 

 he did not think this too close. He thought 

 from what he had heard that Mr. Frazier'a trees- 

 grew too fast, but he was sure that if he cut down 

 half of them he would not get as many apples as- 

 he now does. His experience showed him that 

 apples ripened earlier when the trees were plant- 

 ed close. He had noticed that apples did not 

 keep so well as usual this year, and he attributed 

 this to the extreme cold nights we had in Septem- 

 ber and October. The Red Astrachan apple, the 

 speaker said, had been more profitable to him 

 than any other variety. 



Mr. Wetherell, of Boston, had heard of the 

 same trouble in Illinois that Mr. Frazier had, and 

 a friend of his in western Massachusetts had also 

 been troubled. In the latter case slacked lime was 

 was applied, and with effect. He would recom- 

 mend this, or manure and ashes, as a remedy for 

 the difficulty, In the matter of pruning, he said 

 he never cut off" the large limb of a tree, as he 

 should consider it would be the death of it, and 

 he called attention to the continual sawing of the 

 trees on our Common as a proof of the assertion. 

 Pruning too much, he insisted, was worse than 

 not pruning at all. 



The Chairman said that he agreed with the 

 views now expressed by the previous speaker, 

 and he thought that the pruning of a tree should 

 be conducted on the same principle as the educa- 

 tion of a child, begin early and proceed cautiously. 

 If pruning were done carefully, nothing larger 

 than a jack-knife need ever be used. He would 

 apply composition on every limb cut off" larger 

 than his thumb, as the air should in all cases 

 be excluded. He approved of pruning when the 

 trees were dormant, and his men had pruned more 

 tkan a thousand last month, and would continue 

 pruning until the sap ran. 



Mr. Sparhawk had seen Mr. Frazier's orchard 

 and he thought it had been neglected, although 

 it had been well laid out. He would preserve 

 every tree in the orchard, as he considered with 

 proper care they would be worth $100 each. He 

 would have an experienced pruner go to work in 

 August or September, and carefully prune the 

 trees so as to let the light and air get to the roots, 

 as he considered this as essential to the develop- 

 ment of them as almost anything else. He said 

 Mr. Frazier's orchard was on a side hill, and he 

 would recommend him to put in tile drain, and 

 then put on a compost with unleached ashes. 



Mr. Bancroft, of Salem, said he came to the 

 meeting to ascertain what he should do with his 

 land. Col. Stone had said that an orchard should 

 not be seeded down, and he had land planted 

 with fruit trees which he had cultivated two years, 



