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Patrick Barry once i*tx\(] : — "I will admit that tVuit can 

 be grown on good soil without either manure or cultivation, 

 but not of the bent quality. I should as much expect to 

 see a good crop of corn without cultivation an to see a 

 heavy crop of first class fruit in a sward-bound orchard." 



Tiiese are only a few of the authorities in favor of high 

 cultivation in order to produce good fruit, and such testi- 

 mony might be increased many fold. Place the tree in 

 gras.s land, or give it no cultivation, let the surface become 

 baked hard, or allow weeds to cover the surface, the tree 

 will have a feeble growth, and the fiuit as a necessary 

 consequence will partake of the condition of the tree. A 

 feeble tree will of course bear small fruit. Cultivation 

 alone has often changed both size and quality in a surpris- 

 ing degree. A few experiments only are needed to convince 

 anyone of this. 



" An orchanlist in one of the Western States tried an 

 experiment which strongly proved the benefit of cultivation 

 in orchards. He set out an apple orchard, and gave it good 

 care. The fifth year it bore eight barrels of fruit, twenty 

 barrels the s xth year, and for eight years afterwards the 

 annual yield was 85 barrels on an average. Cultivation 

 was continued up to this time, and he thought it was now 

 time to seed down to grass and clover. The next year the 

 product fell to 15 barrels, or less than one quarter. Culti- 

 vation was again resumed, and the second year it bore 225 

 barrels. The owner concluded to keep up clean culture in 

 future." 



Some yeirs ago a few trees were observed to bear very 

 small fruit. They were then standing in grass ground. 

 Subsequently the whole surface was subjected to good 

 cultivation. The next crop had fiuit at least double the 

 size of the other. 



A tree in another place bore, when standing in grass, 

 very inferior fruit, when a herd of swine accidently rooted 

 up the grass and reduced the whole to a mellow surface. 

 Tlie fruit that year was greatly increased in size, and so 

 much improved in flavor that it would not have been 

 recognized as the same sort. 



To purchase and .set out fine fruit trees of rare sorts in 

 a baked and hardened soil, whose entire moisture and 

 fertility are consumed by a crop of weeds and gra.ss, might 

 very aptly and without exaggeration be compared to the 

 purchase of a tine horse, and then perpetually to exclude 

 from him food and drink. 



