Proceebings of the Fabjiers' Club. 5B9 



or destroys its eggs or nest is an enemy to the neiglilDorhood wliere 

 he dwells, an enemy to his own good, and shonld be severely pun- 

 ished for such bird-killing. 



4. Pruning Trees. 

 " (3tliers say that the failure of our apple trees and crops arises from 

 the unwise practice of cutting off large limbs when pruning the apple 

 tree, and doing the pruning in a rough aud haggled manner, and put- 

 ting nothing on the wounds to protect them from mjuries from the 

 air, hot sun, rain, &c. Yery considerable injury is done to our apple 

 trees in this way. Of this, no reflecting mind can have any doubts, 

 and such pruning ought to be very carefully avoided. But as our 

 most nicely and carefully pruned orchards fail bearing fruit, as our 

 orchards did many years ago, we must seek the true cause or causes 

 of their failure in something else. I am inclined to think that want 

 of manure and want of proper ground-cultm'e, and the changes of our 

 climate from moisture to a hot, scorching diyness, and the prevalence 

 of insects, are the real causes of our apple trees failing to grow and 

 produce plentiful crops of fine fruit, as our orchards did in generations 

 gone by. 



Deep or Shallow Plowing, 

 Mr. E,. Dibble, Branford, Conn. — I always take a great interest in 

 your reports of the Farmers' Club. I was surprised at the position 

 taken by the champion of shallow tillage. All my experience is in 

 favor of deep plowing and subsoiling. Fifteen inches or more has 

 paid me well every time. My farm is of a heavy and wet loam, with 

 a clay subsoil ; in many places hard, so that water stands upon it. 

 When I first worked it my father-in-law was in the habit of plowing 

 shallow, four or five inches. He set me to plowing in a square field ; 

 I divided it into three lands, plowed the first . and half of the next 

 about eight or nine inches deep. When he saw it he said I had 

 spoiled the ground. I then plowed the remainder of the lot as he 

 wished ii done, four or five inches. The season was a dry one ; the 

 whole was planted with corn ; the crop on the latter part was rolled 

 up and nearly dry, so that the crop was spoiled, while the former was 

 not injured at all, and yielded a good crop. He one day asked what 

 made the difierence. I told him : " That is where I spoiled the ground 

 by plowing deep." His reply was " Poh ! that's no reason." Since 

 then I have experimented at least ten times, and always found a 



