160 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



make rapM growth and bear fruit, while trees upon poor ground will not 

 produce fruit for use. 



Mr. Fuller. — I did not advocate cultivating trees on very poor land. I 

 only object to overfeeding. 



THE ELEMENTS OF TREES, AND HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY ORCHARDS. 



From a lengthy letter from L. M. Parsons, of Waukau, Wis., we make 

 the following extract upon the benefit of shade and snow in producing the 

 elements of trees, and particularly in keeping a young orchard in a healthy 

 condition : 



" Waukau, Wis., April 17, 1859. 



•' Hence the virtue of perennial life is due to processes which can only 

 be carried on in conditions which exclude the light, like that of snow, rub- 

 bish or shade. Indeed, the tannin increment is almost limited to snow- 

 clad districts ; and perennials are the most abundantly supplied with it 

 where the concealment of snow in winter is continued through the summer 

 by the agency of moss, leaves and shade. Hence it would seem, that to 

 perpetuate an old orchard, it should either be supplied with the perennial 

 increment in solution, or that the ground should be so concealed from light 

 as to secure a perpetual elaboration of that element. 



" This view is supported by the dwarfed appearance of perennial plants 

 throughout the prairie region of the west, where autumnal fires, from time 

 unmeasured, have robbed the soil of every concealing object, thereby limit- 

 ing the time of perennial gestation to the short period of shade afforded by 

 cereal plants, and the quantity of perennial food to the simple want of 

 cereal plants, wherewith to embalm their seeds. Hence young orchards on 

 our richest cereal soils, like our scattered forest trees, are weak in fibre, 

 false in heart, and early show the marks of dotage, and on which the un- 

 dying parasite makes his preemption before his time. Nothing is more 

 fatal to prairie orchards than open culture, or blighting than the plow, and 

 nothing more beneficial than straw, boards, or anything to make conceal- 

 ment. The soil of old orchards, however well supplied with the embalm- 

 ing element, in its virgin state, becomes exhausted by open culture, naked 

 grazing, and usually deprived of shade by the unsocial distance of the 

 trees, so that in the run of time the soil of eastern orchards, like western 

 prairies, fails to do perennial service. 



" Six years ago, I put out some nursery trees of three years growth, on 

 prairie sod, digging the pits only three inches deep, with a drain, and cov- 

 ered the roots with soil from an old cultivated field, and having scattered 

 potatoes over the ground, covered them with straw fifteen inches deep, 

 putting a little dirt on the top to pack the straw, and some sawdust around 

 each tree to protect it against mice. I had a good yield of potatoes, and 

 every tree lived, and now kave the spread «f an •Id orchard, and give a 

 good yield of fruit. One tree was set where there had been a hog pen ; 

 that tree has borne for five years the finest of fruit (though a seedling) to 

 such extent that it has been necessary to support every limb, and it now 



