PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 333 



of the Green mountains, a man by the name of Little, from Granby, Con- 

 necticut, came into the towii, purchased a farm, then covered with timber 

 of chestnut, oak and maple, resting- on a granite and mica slate, and primi- 

 tive formation. Ue started two or three nurseries of apple trees in dift'erent 

 parts of the farm, and stocked his farm with a very large and fine orchard 

 of choice fruit, which grew and flourished for near sixty years luxuriantly. 

 In one of these nurseries, on land made of hard pan formation, on a swell 

 falling to the west, north and east, many apple trees were left, and the 

 land turned out to pasture. It so remained for a period of over eighty 

 years. Tlie cattle and sheep at once commenced browsing down the young 

 trees, and have followed it to this day. The apple trees have now been 

 reduced to three feet and less in height, while the body of the trees are 

 from six inches to a foot in diameter at the ground. These trees bear no 

 fruit, but from the ground upwards they are nothing but an impenetrable 

 mat or nest of thorns, sticking out every way, literally at war with all the 

 world, and all the world at war with the trees. There they remain, a 

 standing monument of what nature, both animate and inanimate, will do 

 to protect itself against its enemies. One of these trees, after it had 

 stood nearly sixty years, warring witli all the world, and then scarce three 

 feet higli, became enclosed in a mowing field — cattle and sheep, of course, 

 were kept away from it. The tree immediately took advantage of its new 

 condition. A sprout came up from the topmost centre, grew and formed a 

 body of a tree, threw out branches, and has now become one of the elegant 

 and most thrifty trees on the farm, producing a good growth of apples. 

 Indeed, the dwarf trees now stand, many of them, less than three feet high 

 within fifty feet of this new growth of one of their number. The dwarf 

 trees entirely retain their beehive form, and are not much larger or higher 

 than a good sized three-bushel basket. For more than sixty years the 

 apple tree now producing fruit luxuriantly, remained and stood in the same 

 condition that its sisters now do, showing neither fi'uit or flower. Its 

 growth was devoured by the cattle and sheep of the farm every spring and 

 summer. 



We said that the roots take up the sap or liquid manure, which becomes 

 the sap of the tree and ascends through the body of the plant, though the 

 sap in its progress is changed from a watery fluid to albumen. This is 

 \ retained awhile in the upper part of the tree, and becomes modified and 

 thickened into wood, leaves and fruit; a portion still remaining, is again 

 changed into a fluid, and then descends from the top towards the roots, 

 depositing in its passage fruit and wood. It is the blood or life of the 

 tree and plant. It is the sap which makes the wood and leaf, and which 

 makes the fruit. It makes the wood and leaf where it circulates in abund- 

 ance and with force. But the fruit is made only when the sap is checked 

 in its flow. This is so whether the sap is checked naturally or artificially. 

 "We believe that the fruit is derived from the ammonial and mineral sub- 

 stances in the sap. The wood appears to come mostly from the carbona- 

 ceous ingi'edients of it. The wood is carbon, and fruit ammonia, in various ~ 

 forms and compounds. It is much so in the animal economy. But tbr 

 ammonia, or the secretions of it in the organs of generation, the animal 



