332 TRxVNSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



with soil taken from the headlands of the fields. This manure can ho used 

 on corn with great advantage. 



Dr. Trimble. — I should recommend that the hen, hog and barnj'ard ma- 

 nure be mixed with muck, then you will have a valuable compost. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — I hope we shall not let this mode of mixing 

 manures go out as the opinion of this Club. Uug manure imparts a bad 

 flavor to grapes. It is injurious to cabbages and carrots. Both hen and 

 Iiog manurial are volatile, and require plaster to absorb and fix the ammonia. 



Time to Bud Cherries. 



The Chairman. — At what period do you bud cherries ? 

 Mr. Garretson. — I bud cherries in April, May and June with great suc- 

 cess. 



Grafting of Fruit. 



Mr. Alanson Nash. — The process of grafting is very well understood 

 among a large class of persons, but after the graft is set it needs very great 

 care and attention for at least four years if not more. The trouble lies at the 

 joining of the graft witli tlie old stock. If it is in the least exposed to wet 

 the moisture runs and soaks into the split, and the old wood decays, and in 

 the winter season the frost and the ice are sure to start out the graft, split 

 open the wood, stop the circulation of the sap, and then the graft dies. The 

 roots of the tree gather up the sap from millions of little rootlets, many 

 times deep in the ground, and many rods away from the body of the tree. 

 "When plowing in an orchard I have known roots to be plowed up in the 

 ground full seven, eight and even ten rods from the body of the tree; pro- 

 bably this was a peculiar state of things, though I have seen roots plowed 

 up that extended near twenty rods from a rock maple. Where the roots 

 run around, this is for the purpose of taking up the sap or liquid manure, 

 which becomes, by a process of electrical and atmospherical action, the 

 future wood and fruit and leaves of the tree, when it ascends during the 

 following spring and summer. Every tree has a sap of its own, of a pecu- 

 liar quality, as well as organs, which produce fruits even when ripe, either 

 of an acid or sugary quality, dependent almost entirely on the Beasons. 

 Unripe fruit is generally acid, from the excess of oxygen and the want of 

 soda; but one tree will produce sweet apples, another sour; so of grape 

 vines, so of pear trees. Some fruit will ripen in June and July; other 

 trees will ripen in August and September ; others in October, 

 November and December ; some not till March and April. After we 

 have done and said all, the composition of nearly all the fruits are potash, 

 soda, some magnesia, and the four substances called carbon, oxygen, hydro- 

 gen and nitrogen, in their various combinations and modifications. Every 

 tree produces fruit after its kind, unless grafted, and then the grafted fruit 

 becomes modified, both by the stock and by the graft. 



But all of these fruits depend very much upon the cultivation, and cir- 

 cumstances, and soil, and manure, and atmosphere, and seasons which sur- 

 round the tree or plant producing its fruit. The apple originally was the 

 size of a small cherry, now found wild, growing in the woods and forests 

 in all the northern hemisphere, from the tropics almost to the pole. Indeed, 

 the varieties of the apple arc evidently artificial to a great degree. About 

 the year 1170, in Hampshire county, Massachusetts, on the eastern slope 



