February 8, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest 



71 



can readily be adjusted to the growth of the tree from year to 

 year. The damage done to street trees by horses and by care- 

 less usage of workmen about them is incalculable. Prose- 

 cution is useless, because an adequate penally that would deter 

 others is never imposed. 



The gist of the whole matter may be summed up intheform 

 of sententious advice. Select the kinds of trees that expe- 

 rience commends to you as most likely to satisfy your own 

 taste. Select young trees only, of thrifty habit and good form. 

 Furnish good soil in ample quantity at whatever cost or 

 trouble. Handle and transplant with proper care and skill. 

 Mulch and water effectively until the trees be fully established. 

 Guard from damage by any device that will serve your pur- 

 pose. Fight to the death every pest and plague as soon as it 

 appears. Give constant watchfulness to the trees' welfare 

 while you live, and, in making your will, impose the same duty 

 upon the successors to your trust when you die. " Eternal 

 vigilance is the price" of every street tree. 



FERTILIZING ORCHARDS. 



The paper of Professor Roberts of Cornell University, on 

 this subject, was mainly as follows : 



When our arable land was cleared of its forests a large 

 amount of soluble plant-food was in the soil, the product of 

 the ages of growth and decay. Even the subsoil, to a consider- 

 able depth, was filled with roots which disappeared very slowly 

 and formed natural drainage tubes, which not only relieved 

 the land of much of its surplus water, but also allowed the air 

 to penetrate into the earth and hasten chemical action so that 

 plant-food which was partially inert became available. 



In those early days the lands situated in a climate adapted 

 to fruits were extremely productive. The orchards were 

 usually separated by considerable areas of timber; importa- 

 tion of fruit-trees had not yet begun, and many of the enemies 

 of the orchard were in those early days entirely unknown. All 

 this has changed. The forests have been swept away, 

 the natural drainage of the land has been destroyed, and, in 

 most cases, nothing has been substituted for it. The best of 

 the plant-food has been removed from the soil, and more than 

 this, in developing new and better varieties of fruit we have 

 succeeded too often in producing a tree of less sturdy consti- 

 tution. In orcharding, then, we are met with the following 

 conditions : land, water-logged ; available plant-food, scarce ; 

 insect enemies, multiplied ; fungus growth, abundant ; sweep- 

 ing winds and changeable weather ; trees, delicate in char- 

 acter. 



In many orchards the cheapest way to overcome some of 

 these difficulties and secure available plant-food would be by 

 the intelligent use of drain-tile. There is an abundance of 

 food yet in the soil. A poor clay soil in Tompkins County was 

 analyzed and found to contain in the first nine inches 3,094 

 pounds of phosphoric acid, 3,410 pounds of potash and 1,876 

 pounds of nitrogen. Such a soil certainly cannot be said to 

 be deficient in plant-food. What might be said of it is, that 

 quality of plant-food which is demanded for the highest char- 

 acter of plants is deficient. There would be no difficulty in 

 raising a very large crop of Mulleins or Field Pines on such 

 land, therefore it cannot be said to be exhausted. Twenty 

 years in hay — one ton per acre, ten in wheat— twenty bushels 

 per acre, ten in corn — forty bushels per acre, and ten in oats 

 and barley — forty bushels per acre, with straw and stalks, 

 would carry in this fifty years' rotation, from each acre of land, 

 plant-food valued comrnercially at 404 dollars per acre. Hav- 

 ing removed all this vast amount and returned only a quarter 

 or, at most, a half of it to the land, it is no wonder that our 

 orchards do not produce abundantly when set upon this par- 

 tially depleted soil. 



In our numerous experiments with the cuUivation of soil, 

 we naturally are attracted to the one that has given marked 

 results by culture alone. Then, by improved implements and 

 superior skill, we may get the plant-food needed cheaper than 

 by any other method. 



Again, lands may be so poor and light that comparatively 

 little plant-food can be obtained even by the most skillful cul- 

 tivation. In these cases some positive addition of plant-food 

 should be made to the soil. To secure this supply farm ma- 

 nures stand in the front, because they can be had at little or no 

 cost. The feeding of animals on the farm, under good man- 

 agement, results in profit, without taking into consideration 

 the value of the manure produced by them. But farm ma- 

 nures are not well balanced — that is, they are too higli in nitro- 

 gen for the mineral matter they contain, and so should always 

 be used in small quantities, and, if possible, should be well 

 rotted before they are used. Nitrogen can be secured in other 

 ways than by purchase. The sowing of Clover or of Vetches, 



or of other leguminous plants, will furnish not only all the ni- 

 trogen the orchard should have, but it will also bring up much 

 mineral matter from the soil which otherwise would not have 

 been used, and this mineral matter, when given up to the plant, 

 will form soluble food of wliich the fruit-tree can avail itself. 



Again, the fertility of the orchard is often less important im- 

 mediately than the amount of water which is present. The 

 trees should be set at wide intervals, and the land should be 

 kept moist on the surface by cultivation. Frequent midsum- 

 mer tillage forms a mulch and conserves moisture. The 

 orchard should be kept shaded by plants in the after part of 

 the season, and these plants should be of such a character that 

 they will not die until after the dry fall has past. It is of prime 

 importance that water be present in the soil in order that the 

 plant-food may be taken up by the trees. Many an orchard 

 has sufficiently available plant-food, but lacks in water at that 

 critical period when the trees are making fruit. If there is no 

 water present some forms of fertilizers, such as nitrogen, are 

 positively detrimental if they are present in abundance. 



To sum up, the factors of success are : (i) The removal of 

 water where it is too abundant ; (2) The conservation of water 

 where it is deficient ; (3) The use of the refuse of the farm and 

 nitrogenous plants ; (4) The use of potash and phosphoric acid 

 in forms that are readily available ; (5) Surface culture where 

 it is applicable to the conditions present ; (6) Reducing the 

 number of trees per acre ; (7) Withholding tillage and nitro- 

 gen, and increasing the mineral matter until that point is 

 reached where the tenderest trees develop hard wood, firm 

 bark and mature fruit-buds ; (8) Encouraging the cultivation 

 of forest-trees and wind-breaks, so that the winds may, in a 

 measure, be prevented from sucking up the moisture of the 

 land ; (9) Mulching the earth when the orchard is open land, 

 and keeping a covering of porous earth at the surface through 

 the first half of the season ; (10) Fitting the land and fertilizing 

 it in the best manner possible before the orchards are set. 



BREVITIES. 



I am positive that some of our older fruits that have been 

 neglected will become popular again. There are several ex- 

 cellent varieties of Pears which have been tested and proved 

 valuable, and which have passed out of use because they are 

 not handsome, although the quality is better than many of 

 those now grown. There is an increasing demand for quality 

 rather than for appearance.- — W. C. Barry. 



By extra feeding and careful spraying with copper com- 

 pounds, I have grown, in succession, three heavy crops of 

 Spitzenburg apples on trees which had previously failed almost 

 entirely. — Geo. T. Powell. 



In order to have good, hard wood, healthy leaves and well- 

 developed buds, we must rely upon potash and phosphoric 

 acid. — S. D. Willard. 



There is a tendency to grow small fruits too thickly. Rasp- 

 berries, Blackberries, Currants, etc., should be grown in hills 

 in check rows. Even Strawberries are not at their best in 

 matted rows. Plants resist drought better when not too thick. 



— J. H. Hale. 



The city market will never be overstocked with the best 

 quality-of fruit. There is always a sale in Hartford, Connecti- 

 cut, for the Black Defiance Strawberry on account of its high 

 quality. It is not a productive plant, but it never sells at less 

 than twenty-five cents a quart. Chemical fertilizers give me 

 firmer, higlier-colored and better-flavored fruit. — J. H. Hale. 



The Victoria Currant will remain on the bushes until other 

 varieties are out of the market, and for that reason it is fre- 

 quently very profitable and sells for as much as the finer 

 varieties do early in the season. — J . H. Hale. 



Soil has much to do with success with Currants. On loose, 

 loamy land they do not yield a profitable crop oftener than 

 once in five years. On heavy upland they are very profitable. 



— Walter Tabor. 



Of Japanese Plums, Botan, Abundance, Satsuma and Bur- 

 bank are the most satisfactory. The quality is not equal to 

 that of the European varieties, but they are attractive in ap- 

 pearance and keep well, which gives them the advantage over 

 ordinary varieties, and they ripen up well even if they are 

 picked a little green. I consider this the most important type 

 of fruit that has been introduced within the last twenty-five 

 years. — L. H. Bailey. 



The worst orchard diseases in western New York in 1892, 

 named in the order of their destructiveness, were apple- 

 scab, plum-fruit rot, pear-scab, quince-fruit spot. Some 

 correspondents estimate that from fifty-five to seventy-five 

 per cent, of the mature fruit in Apple-orchards were af- 

 fected by scab so much as to effect its market value, and the 

 loss of a considerable amount of fruit which failed to reach 



