16 
CULTIVATION OF FRUIT TREES. 
I 
venting them from dying. Strong manure is not 
suited to the young tree. Muck from swamps or 
the woods, chip manure, or a mild, well-tempered 
compost, is proper to commence with, and ashes 
and lime may be added afterward as the tree 
matures. Great care should be used in selecting 
such as are healthy and of rapid growth, and they 
should never be subjected, from the want of proper 
care, to become stunted or diseased. By careful 
attention, a growth and maturity may be secured 
for them in 5 or 6 years, they would not otherwise 
acquire in 10, or perhaps never. 
lo illustrate the text of our correspondent in 
what follows on the diseases of fruit trees, we give 
above a cut of a diseased branch of a plum tree, fre¬ 
quently called the “ black bunch,” but which we un¬ 
derstand him as defining, “ the knots or black 
vcarts” We are indebted to the courtesy of Messrs* 
Nafis and Cornish 278 Pearl St., publishers of 
Prime Facts for the Farmer, for the figure, a 
little work we highly commend to our readers. 
Diseases. —Th q fire-blight in the pear, is prob¬ 
ably owing to an insect, and the proper remedy 
is excision of the limb; cut off and trim it as fast 
as it appears. The same remedy applies to the 
knots or black warts in plums, and the black gum 
in cherries, they being caused by the boring of an 
insect, and nothing but burning affords any safety 
■to the progress of the disease. If one or more 
trees or even a whole orchard is deeply affected, 
cut it down, and set out another on a different 
field. The curculio is propagated by the deposite 
of the egg in the unripe fruit, which, in conse¬ 
quence, falls prematurely from the tree. Swine 
at large under the tree, will destroy the future 
enemy by eating the fruit. If the situation of the 
trees permits their access, the premature fruit as 
it falls should be carefully collected and fed to 
them, cooking first when practicable. 
Much injury is done to fruit trees by trimming 
at a wrong season of the year; but those desirous 
of information on this subject, will find it in the 
3d No. of Yol. I. of the American Agriculturist. 
The peach is subject to two injuries, the borer 
and the yellows. The first, segeria exitiosa, lays 
its eggs in the body of the tree at the surface of 
the ground. They eat the bark, and in time de¬ 
stroy the tree. They are indicated by gum oozing 
from the wound, just underneath the ground. To 
destroy them, the earth must be removed from 
around the trunk 3 or 4 inches deep in the spring, 
