123 



Jam by Styford (G20) gr. gr. gr. gr. gr. gr. dam 

 by Hallon's bull (313). 



Norfolk received the lf?t premium as the best 

 yearling, best 2 year old, and best aged bull, 

 at the shows of the Wythe County Agricultu- 

 ral Society, fie received the 1st premium as 

 the best Short Horn bull, and best bull of any 

 kind, at the show of the Union Society at Pe- 

 tersburg, Fall of 1855 ; and the 1st premium, as 

 the best Short Horn bull, and best bull of any 

 kind at the State show afc Richmond, Full of 

 1855. 



MISS KIRBY AND CALF MORGIANA BY 

 NORFOLK 755. 



Prize Short Horn Cow, the property of Alex. S. 

 Mathews, Wythe County, Va. 



PEDIGREE. 



Miss Kirby, red, bred by Col. II. Capron, 

 Laurel Factory, Md., the property of Alex. S. 

 Mathews, Wythe Co. Va., calved Nov. 14, 1847, 

 got by Gledhan (3900), out of imported Ellen 

 Kirby by Rockingham (2550), gr. dam import- 

 ed Miss Kirby by Don Juan (1923), gr. gr. dam 

 by Shylock (2622) gr. gr. gr. dam by Castle 

 Howard Bull. 



Miss Kirby received the 1st premium as the 

 best one year old Short Horn heifer at the Ma- 

 ryland State Show, fall of ; 49, and 1st premi- 

 mium as best two year old and best aged cow 

 at the' show of the Wythe County Society. She 

 also received the 1st premium us the be st Shor 

 Horn Cow and best cow of any kind at the 

 State Show at Richmond, fall of 1855. 



TOP GRAFTING OLD ORCHARDS. 



Col. Hodge said that if the trees were! 

 old, far advanced in life, and had com- 1 

 menced decay, he would by all means j 

 cut them down. But if they were young' 

 and vigorous, . he would graft them. A 

 friend of his had an orchards — some of the 

 trees were old and mossy, many of them 

 had commenced decaying — the fruit was 

 gnarly and poor. An itinerant grafter 

 came and grafted them, using his own 

 grafts, and setting many of them twenty 

 feet above the ground. In a few years, 

 when the grafts grew, his trees looked so 

 bad^ and ill shapen that he became dis- 

 couraged and cut them down. He dug 

 up the stumps, thoroughly broke up the 

 ground, manured it, and planted out a 

 young orchard, and in a very few years 

 obtained a fine orchard of handsome trees. 

 In 1848, a person in his neighborhood 

 planted one hundred apple trees ; a year 

 ago last fall, he picked from the orchard 

 one hundred and twenty-seven barrels. 

 Some of the Baldwin trees yielded three 



barrels to the tree. The orchard, how- 

 ever, received first rate treatment. 



Luther Barker, of . East Bloomfield, said 

 he was a nurseryman and liked to sell 

 young trees, but objected to having thirty 

 or forty years of growth lost. He had 

 followed lop grafting extensively for more 

 than twenty years, and in that time had 

 had a great dea! of experience. Very 

 soon after he commenced grafting, he 

 adopted a different method from the one 

 in general use, and his experience fully 

 confirmed him in the belief that it was 

 by far the best. It was to saw off the 

 limbs of the trees low down — no matter 

 if they were six or eight or ten inches 

 in diameter, and then insert a row of 

 grafts around the limb about an inch 

 apart. This should by all means be done 

 early in the spring, before the sap starts 

 at all, or it will not succeed as well. He 

 did not saw off all the top the first year, 

 but left a portion to help sustain the 

 tree for a year or two. Of the grafts 

 which were put in thick, a few of them 

 soon took the lead and made the future 

 top of the tree. One great advantage of 

 inserting so many is, that it keeps the 

 whole limb alive, and does not form any 

 dead spots on the side of the limbs. 



These grafts, by getting the whole force 

 of the tree, grew rapidly, and very soon 

 formed a good top. He had known, in 

 several instances, three barrels of apples 

 to be picked from trees so grafted, in three 

 years from grafting. He had never ex- 

 perienced any ill results from this method, 

 or discovered that it injured the tree in 

 the least. He ought to say, however, 

 that he always used kinds which grew 

 rapidly, in preference to the slower grow- 

 ing sorts, as they supplied a top much 

 sooner. He found it always revived an 

 old orchard to put a flourishing young top 

 on it. He had known trees grafted in 

 this method, to bear good crops of apples 

 for twenty-five years past. He once 

 saved a pear tree which had apparently 

 been killed by the fire blight, by sawing 

 it off below the disease, and putting in 

 several grafts — the tree revived and lived 

 along time. He some times cut his stocks 

 during the winter, and grafted them early 

 in the spring, before the snow went off. 



H. E 



garden, a 

 bli 



Hooker said, that in his father's 

 pear tree was struck with the 



ht ; seeing 



no other wav 



of saving it. 



