PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 293 



was that the cherries were salt and shrivelled — in fact, quite spoiled for 

 eating, and the leaves of the tree presented a yellow sickly aspect. 



BENEFIT OF ASHES UPON PEACH TREES. 



" Within the last six years a leach tub or barrel stood as much as two 

 years over the roots of a peach tree, now about twenty-two years old. For 

 at least twelve months of the time some of the lye from the ashes in the 

 barrel, and lye from the partially leached ashes thrown from the barrel, had 

 an opportunity, when it rained, to get down among the roots of the tree. 

 And that tree, with its old top broken off about six feet from the ground, 

 now has a new and thrifty top upon it. Out of about fifteen trees set out 

 at the same time as this one, there is none that presents as vigorous an 

 appearance. Most of the others are either dead or nearly dead. 



CUT POTATOES HOW THEY SHOULD BE PLANTED. 



Two rows, each about eight rods long, were planted in drills with ' long 

 red' potatoes, cut endwise through the middle. The first hill was planted 

 with the skin side up, the next with the tlosh or flat side up, and the next 

 like the first, and so on to the end. The result was that those planted with 

 the eyes or round side up, yielded about one-fifth more than the ones planted 

 with the eyes downward. 



GREAT YIELD OF STRAWBERRIES. 



On a piece of ground, shaded about half the day by a tree and a build- 

 ing, there stood, in 1862, a row of the Albany or Wilson strawberries. 

 This row stood between other rows, and near twenty inches from them the 

 ground on which they stood had become rich from a variety of causes ; 

 among which may be enumerated rotten potatoes, rotten apples and peaches, 

 and fine straw and hay blown from a barnyard near by. The season 1862 

 in this vicinity was a remarkably good one for strawberries, as the rains 

 came at very favorable times. The fruit from about five feet of this row 

 was measured, and the yield was at the rate of 720 bushels, dry measure, 

 to the acre. In making the estimate I measured half way to the adjacent 

 rows, and half way to the next plants in the same row. This crop was 

 from plants set out the year before ; and in 1863 there were very few of 

 the plants alive. 



GRAPE VINES INJURED BY WINTER COVERINO. 



This vicinity — near the south shore of Lake Erie — is considered favorable 

 for raising grapes. I have about sixteen vines of the Isabella kind. Last 

 winter three of these vine wei'e placed upon the ground and covered with 

 straw. Result : the vines covered did not bear the past season one-quarter 

 as much as my other vines. It is, perhaps, well to mention, that in general 

 it does not freeze as hard in this vicinity as it does in several other places 

 in the same latitude. 



SOIL INJURED BY BURNING. 



There are probably very few kinds of manure as favorable to fruit, &c., 

 as the dark colored vegetable mold, generally existing on lands recently 

 cleared. And the reason of calling attention to this fact is the belief I 

 have long entertained that a vast amount of valuable food for vegetables 

 has been lost by burning too closely when preparing land for the first crop. 



