PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. • 207 



among it. The young trees should be set in these trenches, with their 

 roots placed under ground from three to eight inches deep, trod down or 

 pounded down so as to make the ground around them firm and solid. A 

 portion of the top of each bush or tree should be cut off at the extreme end 

 of the branches, so as to leave the top light, and not top-heavy, when the 

 winds and storms assail it. This treatment is correct for apple trees, peach 

 trees, plum trees, cherry trees and quince bushes and gooseberries. If the 

 tree is inclined to run up fast and to make much wood, the bush ought to 

 be cut back, as it is called, by cutting off the top sprouts, in the fall, from 

 three inches to one foot, training the tree as much as possible into the form 

 of a horizontal growth of the limbs; but the large limbs and branches 

 springing around the hodj of the tree never ought to be cut off unless 

 they show symptoms of decay, and then they ought to be cut down so short 

 as to find live and solid wood, which should be immediately covered over 

 with a grafting wax made of rosin, tallow and beeswax, which ought to be 

 applied twice a year till the stump, the bark and new growth have healed 

 and covered it ovei*. After the trees are once set out, no crop, either of 

 grass or grain, ought to be grown on the ground where the trees stand — 

 they should be kept free of weeds. Electricity has almost everything to 

 do with the growth of trees ; grass conducts up electricity from the earth, 

 so do crops of all kinds, and thus deprive the trees of their necessary share* 

 of electricity rising out of the earth. Trees in the neighborhood of a 

 laundry should ever be supplied with soapsuds, carried or conveyed to the 

 roots of the trees. Animal urine of all kinds is one of the most valuable 

 manures fjr trees; indeed, so is rotten chips or the matter which accumu- 

 lates around the wood yard. I have seen a tree planted near to where a 

 hogpen was located; the roots of the tree reached the fluids from the hog- 

 pen; and although the tree has been set out over 110 years, it is bardy, 

 healthy and vigorous, producing a full growth of apples, juicy and healthy 

 in the extreme, seldom if ever assailed by worms or vermin of any kind. 

 So I have seen a Gilliflower apple tree growing near a stable, wliere the 

 manure is shoveled out every winter near its roots; the fruit improves 

 vastly in quality, size and flavor. 



In the winter season, young trees of all kinds need mulching, or the 

 roots and around the body of the tree should be covered up at the surface 

 of the ground with straw, dry leaves, chip dung, swinglingtow or any sub- 

 stance that would protect it from the severe action of the frost. Grape 

 vines had better be trimmed so that the main stem, if grown in the open 

 air, can be laid down on the ground, protected by bands of straw wound 

 around them and a board covering the whole, to keep out the snow 

 and ice. 



Mr. George Smith, of the town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, about sixty 

 miles from St. Johns, has followed the practice for some years, of grafting 

 the apple and the plum upon the stock of the rock maple. We learn that 

 he had as many as five or six different kinds of plums growing upon one 

 maple. He has also been in the habit of grafting the apple upon the rock 

 maple, and thus produces some of the finest fruit in the world. We obtain 

 information from a gentleman who has been at Mr. Smith's house, and par- 

 taken of his fruit, and he assures us that his plums and apples, growing 



