180 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
with planting out. Let the trench be long 
enough to receive all the trees freely with¬ 
out injuring the roots by cramping. Then 
repack your trees, and put them at once in 
the trench and cover the roots well with 
loose earth, heaping it about them some¬ 
what. The reason for this is obvious. They 
are not exposed to the sun, drying winds, 
or frost, but are preserved in a state of fresh¬ 
ness until wanted for final planting out, 
which should be as soon as the holes can be 
dug. 
Upon proper setting out depends much of 
their future success—but of this hereafter. 
The next step in order, if not already done, 
is to procure about a seventy-five or eighty 
gallon cask ; sink it two-thirds in the ground, 
and fill it two-thirds full of “ puddle,” made 
of two parts clay and one of cow dung, well 
wet and mixed till of the consistency of 
thin mortar. Into this you may dip your 
fruit trees as they are lifted out of the trench 
for setting. I apprehend no one who has 
ever tried this process will fail to continue 
it, and urge upon his friends the same prac¬ 
tice. This puddle adheres closely to every 
fiber, and the earth in turn adheres to that 
A world oflabor, also, in watering, is saved, 
as no water is needed other than what the 
puddle affords. 
Setting a stake at the side of the tree at 
the time of planting, to which it must be tied, 
is advisable, to secure it against being much 
shaken by high winds before the roots have 
a firm hold. Indeed this is always a mark 
of good culture. If the stake be driven after 
he tree is set, there is danger of seriously 
bruising the roots. 
The next point to consider is, the shorten- 
jng-in of the stem and lopping off branches. 
This process can not be very definitely laid 
down on paper, without the help of diagrams, 
but still something may be said that will as¬ 
sist the novice. A stem five feet long I 
would make about three, unless it was a 
dwarf pear, when f would have it shortened 
to about two, or two and a-half. And the 
branches I would lop off, say for the lower 
ones, one-third of their length, and the upper 
ones one-half. This process will, in a great 
measure, proportion the top with the root, 
and the growth will be proportionate. 
And now comes the process of mulching, 
which consists in covering the ground about 
the roots, for a space of six feet in diameter, 
with any kind of coarse litter—the object of 
which is, to partially shade the ground, that 
it may not so easily dry out, but retain a 
more even moisture through the first and 
most trying season. 
This course of proceeding patiently pur 
sued will, doubtless, in the end, prove to the 
farmer and amateur an economical invest¬ 
ment. What is worth doing at all is worth 
doing well. 
Washing the bodies of young fruit trees 
with soft soap, at least once a year, is a 
great promoter of health and thrift, but 
should never be done the first year after 
planting out. Whitewashing the trunks of 
trees, aside from their unsightly appearance, 
is a practice always to bo condemned.—W. 
D., Morristown, N. J. 
HASTENING PEAR TREES. 
Instructive Experiments on hastening Pear Trees 
Raised from Seed. 
More than once on seeing my numerous 
seedling pear trees, inexperienced amateurs, 
full of superficial knowledge, have said to 
me, “ What ! you wait seven, eight, or ten 
years before your trees come into bearing? 
That is too long to wait; this is the method 
I would take to hasten their bearing : when 
a seedling has made a well ripened terminal 
shoot, I would bud or graft it on the quince 
stock, and thus have fruit in the third or 
fourth year after the operation.” Others re¬ 
commend grafting or budding on standards, 
or on the lateral branches of strong pyramids 
in bearing. My reply was always, “ Have 
you tried it ? Have you established by ex¬ 
periment the superiority of this practice?” 
No one ever ventured in the affirmative. 
They had only heard that it could be done. 
A prejudice. I know that twenty years ago, 
or more, similar experiments had been tried, 
but without success. Desirous, however, of 
making sure on this point, I renewed the ex¬ 
periment on an extended scale. The follow¬ 
ing was the result obtained : From fifteen 
of my most promising seedlings, and such 
as were best adapted for the purpose, I took 
good grafts in the third year, and worked 
them on strong shoots at six or seven feet 
high ; I also took six buds of each sort and 
worked them on the quince stock; and I 
sacrificed five strong pyramids by grafting or 
budding on their lateral branches. These 
grafts and buds succeeded perfectly well for 
several years, with the exception of four 
sorts which did not succeed on the quince 
stock, but the others did not bear sooner than 
the seedlings themselves. The contrary, in 
fact, was the case with most of the sorts so 
propagated, notwithstanding that long prun¬ 
ing and all the other modes of hastening 
bearing had been resorted to, but all in vain 
The cause in the opinion of highly compe¬ 
tent men is this : every seedling pear tree 
according to the nature of its constitution 
passes through the various stages of veget¬ 
able life before it arrives at the state in which 
it is in a condition to bear fruit. The stem 
and a part ol the upper branches next to it 
must pass through certain phases of their 
growth before they acquire, either by pecu¬ 
liarity of constitution or by age, the proper¬ 
ties necessary for the production of the or¬ 
gans of fructification. Neitheir the nature 
of the quince stock, nor the age of a strong 
wild pear sto^k, nor that of a tall pyramid 
already in bearing can change the nature of 
the graft or bud worked upon them. 
The results of the experiments and obser¬ 
vations made upon this subject prove that it 
is indispensable to make a judicious selection 
of grafts or buds in order to produce bearing 
wood. It is the strong shoots of the upper 
part of a tree in a bearing state, or on the 
point of becoming such, and derived from a 
variety that has already home fruit, to which 
the preference should be given. By em¬ 
ploying scions from too young trees the fruit¬ 
ing of those so propagated is retarded. By 
taking scions from an aged, weakly, or worn 
out tree, all its inherent faults are repro¬ 
duced in the propagated plants. Here anoth- 
point is touched upon, namely, the influence 
of the stock upon the graft and of the graft 
upon the stock; but this forms a different 
subject of consideration.—J. de Jonghe, in 
Gardener's Chronicle. 
THE ASPARAGUS BED. 
“ How shall I get an asparagus bed ?”asks 
one of our subscribers. We will try and 
give the information desired. 
To begin with the beginning—tlie seed 
may be sown in autumn or early in the 
spring, in a good loamy soil. Select good 
and ripe berries, put them in water, and 
when slightly fermented, the seed can easily 
be washed from the pulp and dried. One 
ounce will grow a thousand plants. Sow in 
drills an inch deep, about one foot apart and 
cover with fine soil, pressed down lightly. 
Keep the weeds out, stir the soil often, and 
thin the plants to six inches apart in the 
drills. At one year old select the best and 
thriftiest plants to form your bed. 
The asparagus bed should be open to the 
morning sun. And it is better if protected 
from the north and east, yet open to light 
and air. It should be very rich, and on this, 
more than anything else, depends the amount 
and value of the product. Dig up a loamy, 
porous soil two feet deep, intermixing large¬ 
ly and thoroughly with manure to within six 
inches of the top ; this should he filled with 
garden loam. Then take the young plants 
from the seed bed—injuring the roots as lit¬ 
tle as possible—and carefully set out in rows 
two feet apart, one foot apart in the row. 
Then cover the bed two inches deep with 
dark colored soil, made by a mixture of 
charcoal dust and muck, and sprinkle salt 
until the surface is white again. This will 
keep down the weeds and promote the 
growth of the asparagus, which, it should 
be remembered, originated on the sea-shore. 
In autumn remove the dead stalks and 
cover the bed three inches deep with stable 
manure, to be forked in in the spring, with 
another dressing of salt. Let the stalks 
grow the first and second year without cut¬ 
ting, that the roots may get well established ; 
the third year the asparagus will be fit to 
cut, and will, with similar treatment each 
fall and spring—with perhaps a slight addi¬ 
tion of earth to prevent the roots from com¬ 
ing too near the surface—continue to yield 
well for many years. 
Remember, room, a rich, warm soil, moist, 
but well drained, and salt enough lo prevent 
the growth of weeds, are peculiarly benefi¬ 
cial to the asparagus plant. With these, 
and good care, one can not fail to have that 
inmate of all gardens, and asparagus bed.— 
Rural New-Yorker. 
An old Saying Amended. —“ You are rath¬ 
er late this morning, William,” said good Mr. 
Rise-with-the-sun, to a laggard apprentice 
who came at a late hour. “Yes, sir, but 
‘betterlate than never,’ is an old saying,” 
replied William. “ Better never late," said 
his master, “ is an axiom of far more worth, 
though it may not be so old.” 
