No. 129.] 499 



a jar of jelly made by him from his Catawba Grapes. The mem- 

 bers of the Club (some thirtj'^-five in number) tasted it and gave 

 their opinions. Some said very good, excellent and delicious. 



The Professor said, the attendance of practical fruit growers is 

 larger than usual and much information has been elicited, Mr. 

 R. L. Pell made remarks on the culture of the apple and gave a 

 succinct history of his experiments and their results. 



Our readers are aware that Mr. Pell is the owner of the largest 

 apple orchard in the world, and no grower of this fruit has been 

 more successful. He was the first to discover that apple trees 

 might be made to bear every year by supplying the necessary 

 pabulum for producing fruit. 



Mr. Pell and some other members stated that those trees to 

 which they had given liberal supplies of manures of the proper 

 kind, were not deteriorated in quality by bearing every year 

 instead of every other year, but that, in every respect, they were 

 improved ; the tree as well as the fruit was advanced in quality, 

 and the gain by rendering them more fruitful was very great. 

 The bark of the trees should be kept clean by scraping off the 

 old and dead bark, washing the trees with a solution of one pound 

 of bleachers No. 1 soda in a gallon of water, &c. The trimming, 

 when necessary, should be performed in June, and the suckerg 

 should be removed in midsummer while green and tender bj 

 rubbing them off instead of waiting until they are large enough 

 to require the knife. Orchards should be as thoroughly culti- 

 vated as other crops, and should not be used for the raising of 

 such crops as require similar constituents to those composing the 

 apple tree or fruit. Mr. P. stated that, in his early experimentSj 

 they were conducted without an analysis of the soil or fruit, but 

 he was well aware that, whatever the necessary constituents 

 might be, they would require amendment for increasing the crops, 

 and he therefore made a compost as general in its character as 

 possible, and containing the greatest variety he could get together 

 of such ingredients as he could presuppose to be proper ; that he 

 removed the surface soil from the roots, applied the compost near 

 the roots so as to be within distance to be reached by the spon- 



