No. 129,] 453 



state an experiment I attempted' the past year upon a large 

 cherry tree that was planted sixty years ago, and for the past ten 

 years has been condemned as fit for nothing but to shade the gar- 

 den. It was ever full of leaf, but bore scarcely any fruit, and 

 when it did was imperfect, and ripened prematurely. The tree 

 is a late bearer, ripening in July ; The fruit heart-shaped, large, 

 and very dark red, of the Ox-heart species. It had stood so long 

 in the midst of the garden, I could not bear to order the axe — it 

 looked like an old friend in childhood. I had often studied my 

 school lessons upon the branches, eat the fruit, and remembered 

 faces thei"e, now long since passed away ! 



<' Turning over the leaves of the Horticulturist, I was prompted 

 to try what digging and changing the earth might do, and my 

 proceeding, I must premise, was anything but a scientific one, I 

 first ordered the ground to be cleared and broken up, laying the 

 main roots bare to about three feet all around from the trunk of 

 the tree; then putting in three or four wheel-barrow loads of 

 manure, fresh from the cow-yard ; next putting in the same 

 quantity of fresh earth from the road near a smoke house, from 

 which refuse had often been thrown ; this was worked in,addino' 

 some of the old soil, and for a top-dressing, a bushel of shell-lime 

 and the same of coal ashes mixed together was added. 



" This was done in the tail of 1850, In the following spring 

 the earth was turned over, and I added a bushel of ashes and 

 lime. The result was beyond my expectations. The tree was 

 one mass of bloom, and the fruit ripened fully and abundantly, 

 I was obliged to have a sheet held under the tree and the fruit 

 shaken down, and a pretty sight it was. A brother-in-law of 

 mine was so delighted as to beg me to take a drawing of the 

 fruit, saying he would have it lithographed, for he had never 

 seen finer or handsomer cherries. Tiais is encouraging, and this 

 fall I have had the earth again well turned over, adding manure 

 &c.,&,c , and am making the like attempt upon some old pear 

 trees — virgalieus and bergamots — tliat are diseased. They put 

 out abundantly of blossoms and leaves ; but as soon as the fruit 

 forms, a sort of hard, black spot forms on one side ; the fruit 

 ripens prematurely, and not one ever had been of some eight or 



