476 TJiA^'SACTIO^'S of the A^ierican Institute. 



Preparation of Ground for Fruit Trees. 



A correspondent desired information tonching the most feasible 

 and expeditious mode of preparing land to be set with fruit trees 

 wliere the soil is heavy. The iiKjuiiy was referred to Mr. Serene 

 Edwards Todd, who replied as follows : 



" The easiest and most expeditious way of j^reparing a field for fruit 

 trees, where the land is heavy, is to lav out tjie ground in lands, say 

 thirty-two or more feet wide, or just as Avide as the proposed distance 

 between the rows of trees after they are transplanted. Xow let the 

 land be plowed in ridges, making calculations for the dead furrows to 

 appear exactly where a row of trees will be j^lanted. Let the lands be 

 plowed three or four times, always turning the furrows toward the 

 ridges, and continually away from the dead furrow. By this system 

 of plowing, admitting that the plow runs six to eiglit inches deep, by 

 going over a land four times, a broad and deep middle furrow may be 

 worked down two feet deep with only the common plow and a single 

 team. Then, after the last plowing has been finished, if a subsoil 

 plow can be employed in the bottom of eight or ten of the last furrows, 

 the entire ground round about the places where trees are to grow will 

 be thoroughly broken up and pulverized to the depth of thirty to 

 thirty-six inches. Let such fields be exposed to the frosts of Avinter, 

 after which reverse the plowing, so as to level the surface, and put out 

 the trees. This process will save a vast amount of fatiguing manual 

 labor. On ground thus thorouglily made ready trees will grow much 

 faster, and fruit much earlier than when set out in carelessly prepared 

 soil, in the usual manner, with a spade, by simply digging only a small 

 hole in hard ground, barely large enough to receive the roots of the 

 tree. Fruit trees put out in land prepared as directed will grow in 

 twenty years twenty or more leet high, and be loaded with fine fruit ; 

 while, if transplanted in the usual way, the same trees would not have 

 grown more than ten to twelve feet high, and would not produce half 

 the amount of fruit that they would have yielded had the trees been 

 properly set out." 



Improved Gate. 



Mr. D. McCurdy, Ottawa, Iowa, sends a description of a farm gate 

 that he wants members of the cluV) to tiy. It belongs to that class 

 of gates which slide lengthwise through a swivel or pivoted post and 

 then turns half way around to open the gateway. 



Mr. AVm. S. Carpenter. — On my own farm I have thrown aside 



