REPORT OF THE APPLE AND PEAR CONFERENCE. 



49 



removed. A good dressing of decayed farmyard manure was 

 worked in with the operation of trenching, and as we could 

 obtain good clayey loam, a barrow-load of it was spread out over 

 two square yards, and six inches below the surface ; a thin layer 

 of decayed manure was placed on the ground before the loam. 

 This was easily done as the work proceeded ; one man could 

 wheel in the loam and manure to two at work trenching. 



When the work was finished we had a good gravel path with 

 box edging on each side, and the borders, through the trenching 

 and manuring, were about eight inches higher than the sur- 

 rounding ground level. I had to plant the trees soon after the 

 trenching was finished ; they were apples, pears, and plums, on 

 various stocks and in considerable variety. We planted them 

 but six feet apart at first, and when they were planted a portion 

 of good decayed turfy loam was placed round the roots. With 

 this treatment, as might be expected, the trees made good clean 

 growth even the first year. 



As we manured rather too heavily by placing in two layers of 

 fat stuff, I thought it best to retrench the ground the next year, 

 lifting the trees as the work proceeded. I found they had made 

 a mass of fibrous roots into the loam, and when the trees were 

 replanted again quite another barrow load of loam was placed 

 round the roots, but no manure this time. However, round the 

 roots of each tree some decayed frame manure was placed to keep 

 the frost from them. 



The trees made good clean growth again, and formed plenty 

 of blossom buds. But I found six feet was too close even for 

 apple trees on the Paradise stock, and they had ultimately to be 

 removed from nine to twelve feet apart. In the course of the next 

 ten years other borders were made, and in some cases the trees 

 which were too close to each other were thinned out to furnish 

 them. Many of the old cankered trees remained in proximity to 

 the young ones for quite ten years, and with some two or three 

 unimportant exceptions none of the young trees cankered. This 

 shows, I think, if the disease had been caused by insects they 

 might have travelled from the old diseased trees to the young 

 ones. It was some seven or eight years before any canker appeared, 

 and then only on Dumelow's Seedling or Wellington. These 

 trees were lifted, the canker cut out, and they were replanted 

 again with fresh loam under and above the roots. The cut out 

 portions soon healed over, and I saw no more of the disease. 



The object I had in view was to encourage the roots up to the 

 surface, and to keep and feed them there. The entire border 

 quite close to the surface was full of roots, because it was not dug 

 over, but merely scratched with a fork or hoe ; and during winter 

 and summer there was a thin layer of manure over it. Within 

 the borders were the kitchen garden squares, well manured, to 

 be cropped with vegetables, and the roots ran into this freely. 



D 



