PROCEEDINGS OF THE HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 711 



pulverization of the soil ; with a third under draining, and with another irri- 

 gation or the use of liquid manure; and the exaltation of some one condition 

 an essential to success often embarrasses the engineer, or as an " ignis fatuus," 

 leads liim from the pathway of intelligent scientific culture. The recognition 

 of established principles as truly exalts horticulture tg the rank of a science 

 as any other department of study. Has the infinite architect whose plans we 

 are but working out, made every particle of matter, nay the very earth itself 

 obedient to law ; lias he made the sun in the heavens and all the luminaries 

 that revolve around it the subject of law ; must even those genial rays, which 

 alone have power to quicken dormant life, and every particle of light which 

 often traveling its hundred millions of miles to give to every leaflet and every 

 blade of grass its beautiful green of varying shade, move in their appointed 

 way in obedience to law ; must every drop of water that falls from the clouds, 

 even the dew drop reflecting the beauties of the rainbow, all be creatures of 

 law, and He not give us laws when we seek to work as nature's handmaid ? 

 It cannot be. Verily the principles upon which all these operations in the 

 garden and orchard are conducted have laws as fixed and immutable as any 

 other science. Nay there is not a leaf, not a flower, not the unseemly root 

 itself, but is formed as the action of light in obedience to law, decomposing a 

 given quantity of carbonic acid, for the production of a given quantity of gum 

 which is to enter into its structure. 



Accept these principles and the culturist can adopt his operations to the 

 varying conditions of temperature and the hydrometric changes of the atmos- 

 phere found in our extended country, and to the quality and depth of the soil, 

 recognizing depth as the most essential in the thin soil of the Atlantic slope : 

 while iu the virgin soil of the west, especially upon the river bottoms it will 

 be a superfluous task. 



CHARACTER OF THE SOIL. 



Let us examine ts conditions with special reference to the pear If the 

 land be of a tenacious, cloggy, or peaty nature ; indeed in all land of whatever 

 character, if inclined to be wet in winter, a thorough system of under draining 

 must be adopted to bring it into a condition to ensure successful culture. The 

 finer varieties will not exhibit their characteristic excellences under any other 

 conditions : hence we may regard this as an indispensable preparative. The ex- 

 planation of this necessity is found in the fact that the requisite degree of 

 warmth in the under-lying subsoil cannot be attained without the system of 

 drainage. The preparation of the ground for the development of the character- 

 i.-;tic excellences of such varieties as the Buerre Diel, Glout Morceau and 

 Buerre d'Anjou, will secure a vigorous growth of healthy, stalwart trees, and 

 a corresponding fineness of fruit, gained under no other circumstances. The 

 intelligent orchardist finds the rationale of this in the removal of the stagnant 

 water about the rootlets of the tree, that wars with its growth, sadly marring 

 its development, and often proving fatal to the tree itself. If you can find a 

 gravelly, or even a sandy loam, with an underlying shaly sub-stratum, you 

 have one of the best physically constituted soils nature oan give for fruit cul- 

 ture, for it secures the requisite dryness without the expense of under-draining, 

 its depth being increased by the sub-soil and trench plow. 



To these two indispensable conditions, depth and dryness, add those of mel- 



