532 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



of the best apples, afssures us that the secret of 

 his success is the thinning of the fruit, and he has 

 no doul)t of the economy of the practice. No good 

 farmer doubts the necessity of thinning his root 

 crops, no vif/neron the propriety of thinning his 

 grapes. Analogy of cultivation, therefore, justifies 

 the practice, and I entertain no question of its 

 great importance. 



Light, air and moisture are essential to the pro- 

 duction of vegetable products, and especially of 

 fine fruits. Who has not observed that the best 

 specimens of fruits on a tree are ordinarily those 

 which are most exposed to these elements ? Who 

 does not select the full-sized ruddy fruit, which 

 has had free communion with light, heat, and air, 

 in preference to the half-fed specimen which has 

 shared its own proper nourishment with five or 

 six crowded rivals on the same spur ? 



An experienced English cultivator says : "The 

 bending of branches of trees by an overcrop of 

 fniit, is most injurious, for the pores of the woody 

 stalk are strained on the one side of the bend, and 

 compressed on the other ; hence the vessels 

 through which the requisite nourishment flows, be- 

 ing partially shut up, the growth of the fruit is re- 

 tarded in proportion to the straining and compres- 

 sion of the stalk." This is illustrated in tlie over- 

 bearing of some varieties, which, from a redun- 

 dancy of fruit, without the jirocess of early and 

 thorough thinning, seldom produce good speci- 

 mens, and in a few years become stinted and un- 

 healthy trees. The overbearing of a tree is as 

 much a tax upon its energies and constitution, as 

 is the exhaustion of a field by exctssive crops of 

 the same kind, year after year, without a return of 

 nutritive materials. Liexhaustible fertility is a chi- 

 mera of the imagination. Sooner or later, the 

 richest soils will require a restoration of what has 

 been abstracted by vegetation. However fertile 

 at first, the constant overcropping of the soil is a 

 reduction of the elements on which health and 

 fruilfulness de])end. This great principle of sus- 

 tenance and reciprocal relation runs through the 

 whole mass of life, of mind and of matter. 



Intimately connected with this process of thin- 

 ning, is the time when the work should be execut- 

 ed. It should not be done before we can distin- 

 tinguish the choicest specimens in a cluster of 

 fruit, nor delayed so long as to waste the energies 

 of the tree. This practice, judiciously followed, 

 will supei'cede the necessity of staying up the 

 branches, will prevent injury to the tree by their 

 breaking, and will prove decidedly economical. 



Associated with the thinning of fruits is the ex- 

 pediency of gathering a part of the crop as soon as 

 it approaches maturity. The remaining specimens 

 will thereby be much increased in size and excel- 

 lence. The fruit of a tree does not all come to 

 maturity at the same time, hence this successional 

 gathering will turn the crop to the highest practi- 

 cal account, and will keep the productive energies 

 of the tree in a healthful and profitable condition. 



Tkeatment of Horses' Feet. — Mr. Gamgee, 

 Sen., in the Edinburgh Veterinary Eeinew for Au- 

 gust, says : — "The day will, I believe, soon come 

 when people will not allow cutting instruments to 

 touch the soles of their horses' feet. I have said 

 in former papers that the wall, sole and frog are 

 so constructed that they mutually co-operate, and I 



that the intermediate horn, which I have shown is 

 secreted between the wall and sole at their union, 

 is also required to be left entii'e ; but, by the pre- 

 vailing custom of cutting the hoof, these substan- 

 ces, which in their nature are rebounding springs, 

 are destroyed or greatly impaired. The custom 

 of thinning the sole, and likewise of keeping that 

 part always in cow dung, or other wet soddening 

 material, under the name of 'stoppings,' was 

 brought much into vogue after the establishment 

 of our fin'st veterinary schools." 



BENEFITS OP AUTUMN PLOWING. 



The tillage and drainage of the soil are very 

 closely related to each other. So indeed are the 

 tillage and manuring the soil. And these, not 

 merely as cause and effect, are related — though 

 drainage does enable tillage, and tillage does alter 

 composition — but as being operations of the same 

 class and kind. And thus Mr. Bailey Denton, 

 though engaged in a lecture upon land drainage, 

 could not help referring to the steam-plow — as 

 the great tillage implement of the future. And we 

 had from him, too, the striking fact bearing on 

 the composition of a fertile soil, that in a state of 

 perfect tilth one-quarter of its bulk is air. 



Mr. Smith, of Lois-Weedon, says that in all 

 clay soils containing the mineral elements of grain, 

 perfect tilth dispenses with the need of manure ; 

 and there cannot be a doubt that a deep and. 

 thorough tillage enables the soil to draw immense- 

 ly on the stores of vegetable food contained in air 

 and rain. Messrs. Hardy again say that perfect 

 tilth dispenses with the need of drainage, and 

 there can be but little doubt that deep and thorough 

 tillage facilitates the operation of whatever drain- 

 age may exist, whether it be natural or artificial. 



Li both these cases, the useful lesson is well 

 taught, that it is .true economy rather to put the 

 cheap and copious storehouse of Nature's agencies 

 to its fullest use, than by laborious and costly ar- 

 tificial means to imitate expensively their opera- 

 tion. 



Such a lesson applies, beyond the advantage of 

 tillage, to the methods by which tillage is obtained. 

 Among the earliest suggestions of cultivation by 

 steam power was that of reducing by its means 

 the soil to tilth at once. The land was to be torn 

 down as the deal is torn down at the saw-mill ; 

 though before the machine it may have been as 

 hard and firm as wood, behind the tool as it ad- 

 vanced at work, it was to lie as light and fine as 

 sawdust. But it has at length been found that it 

 is better to leave this last refinement of the tillage 

 process to the weather, which does it without cost. 

 The land is now torn — smashed nj) — or moved and 

 thrown about by plow or grubber in great clods 

 and lumjjs. This is best done in dry autumn 

 vAeather, and thus it lies till spring. Certainly no 

 climate is better adapted for cheap tillage than the 

 English — the rains and frosts of winter following 

 a dry September and October must penetrate and 

 thrust asunder the clung and hardened masses of 

 the soil. No two jiarticles shall remain adhering 

 to each other, if you only give room and op])ortu- 

 nity to the cheapest and most perfect natural dis- 

 integrator in the world. 



No rasp, or saw, or mill will reduce the indurat- 

 ed land to soft and wholesome tilth, so perfectly 

 as a winter's frost. And all that you need to at- 



