AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
157 
roots for the young oaks who graduate in | 
future. 'He said he was aware of the diffi¬ 
culties of lifting a strong rooted seedling 
like himself, but then it should be considered 
that the tree-planter bought all the roots of 
the tree, as well as its top, and for one, he 
thought the grower should fulfil his contract. 
He thought it an outrage to put an ignorant, 
unskilled laborer to such nice work as lifting 
the roots and delicate fibres of a nursery 
tree. 
A young Elm followed White Oak. He 
said he could sympathize, entirely, with the 
speaker last up. Although he had the name of 
being a little slippery in character, and could 
make roots very fast, yet he found it hard 
work to get through the first season, after 
transplanting. He said he was planted in 
gravelly soil, and he thought he should have 
died many a time last summer, for want of 
water. Full one half of his roots had been 
torn off - , and there had been no reduction of 
his limbs to meet the deficiency. He said 
the Elms were losing ground in all his neigh¬ 
borhood, and it was no uncommon thing to 
hear pious and well bred gentlemen defaming 
the race and cursing the institutions of learn, 
ing that sent out such graduates. He was 
glad for one that the honored Professors, who 
had trained him to gracefulness and splen¬ 
dor, could not hear all that was said of them. 
He hoped, however, that some measures 
would be taken to stop this horrible mutila¬ 
tion. 
A grave looking personage, in the shape 
of Minister Apple, next arose. He said he 
was accustomed to receive the dispensations 
of Providence with equanimity and resigna¬ 
tion, but there were certain dispensations of 
man that he could not sit down under with 
patience. He said he was by nature a con¬ 
scientious bearer of fruit, and professedly 
went forth to do good in the world. This 
was his vocation, and he delighted to fulfil it, 
but he found it entirely impracticable, in con¬ 
sequence of his seminary learning. He had 
not only to complain of the premature root 
pruning to which his bretheren had been 
subjected, but he found himself stocked with 
a whole regiment of apple tree borers, in the 
egg. He had no sooner got established in 
his new position, and formed fruit buds, than 
he found himself honey-combed about the 
collar, and the only harvest he had yet been 
able to produce was a respectable crop of 
saw-dust, thrown out by these animal saw¬ 
yers. He thought these borers were not a 
stock that cultivators generally wished to 
buy, and that nursery-men ought to make it 
as much a point of honor to deliver only 
what was bought, as to deliver all that was 
purchased. He should be obliged very soon 
to renounce both his name and his profes¬ 
sion, unless better morals prevailed in the 
nursery. 
There was a rustling of silks, and a great 
stir among the female part of the audience, 
when the minister closed. A rotund and 
jolly looking woman, very richly dressed, 
now came forward. Although somewhat 
dwarfish in height, it was quite manifest that 
she had been accustomed to good society. 
The chairman introduced her as the Duchess 
d’Angouleme. She said : 
Mr. Chairman:—I think the gentlemen 
who have preceded me have made a good 
deal of stir about very small matters. If I 
had nothing more than internal troubles, 
such as amputated roots, and a bored collar 
to complain of, I should not have broken the 
modest silence of womanhood, on this occa¬ 
sion. But there are troubles, Mr. Chairman, 
against which the patience of my suffering 
sex are not proof. Internal griefs that can 
be kept from the gaze of the world, we can 
bear without murmuring ; but when we are 
sent forth to the world, smitten with a visi¬ 
ble plague, our skins rigid with a leprous de¬ 
filement, called scale-bugs, our pride is 
wounded by this insult offered to our person¬ 
al beauty, and we claim the privilege of 
being heard. Woman has her rights, Mr. 
Chairman, and when they are thus trampled 
upon by men without taste and refinement, 
the time has come to assert them. For 
three long years, Sir, my life has been little 
else than a desperate struggle with the vam¬ 
pires that I was forced to carry off upon my 
person, when I left this neighborhood. The 
constant inquiry of visitors—“ What is the 
matter with your Duchesse trees V' was ex¬ 
ceedingly mortifying. If veils had only been 
as plenty as these pestiferous lice, I should 
have hid myself for the remainder of my 
life. All the promises of faithfulness with 
which my purchaser was refreshed by the 
nursery-man, have failed to be realized. I 
protest, Mr. Chairman, in the most solemn 
manner, against this wholesale traffic in lice, 
under the garb of a retail trade in pear trees. 
Flas it come to this, that the companions of 
dukes, the favorites of nobility, are to be 
treated like the truants of a kennel, given 
over to filth, and to become the habitation of 
parasites I Is the potash market bare 1 
Has soap and water failed from the earth, 
that we are to be treated thus 1 Let us arise 
in our might, and protest against these out¬ 
rages.” 
Our reporter was obliged to leave in the 
midst of the proceedings. How much of 
embellishment he added to the speeches we 
are unable to say. We have no doubt, how¬ 
ever, that the main facts in the case are cor¬ 
rectly set forth. 
We have purchased, in our life-time, scale- 
bugs enough to out-number all the armies of 
the Allies and Russia combined. We think 
the point made by one of the speakers well 
put—that a cultivator only purchases trees, 
and for the nursery-man to put off upon him 
a generation of vipers in company with his 
trees, is a fraud upon the unsuspecting. If 
the nursery-man does not receive enough 
for his trees to afford the soap and water to 
clean them, let him charge higher and keep 
his trees scrupulously clean. It should be 
considered a disgrace for any man to send 
out lousy trees from his nursery. We advise 
all purchasers, so far as practicable, to see 
to the selection* of their trees in person. 
And when this is not possible, to return all 
inhabited, deceased and unsound trees that 
are sent to him. It is the seller’s business 
to send you clean trees.— Ed. 
What is it you must keep after you have 
given it to another I Your word. 
LOSS OF FRUIT TREES—HINTS ON SETTING 
OUT, Ac.-No. II. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Having called attention to the importance 
of a little extra care as a paying remedy 
against the annual loss of fruit-trees. I pro¬ 
pose now tojeonsider the proper manner of 
setting them out, and the course of treat¬ 
ment they should receive, until, at least, they 
arrive at a bearing state. 
First, a word in regard to locating fruit 
trees. Apples, peaches and quinces are con¬ 
sidered better adapted to what is generally 
understood by orchard culture, that is, they 
may occupy ground some distance from the 
house, since they do not require quite so 
much attention at the period of ripening as 
pears, plums, cherries, appricots, grapes, 
&c., &c. The peach, however, even when 
grown in orchards, and a regular business is 
made of gathering the fruit, requires unre¬ 
mitting attention. Some kinds of pears 
need gathering before they are yellow ripe 
upon the tree. It is therefore more conve¬ 
nient to have them come frequently under 
the eye. Cherries, particularly early ones, 
are much despoiled by birds, and although 1 
would always befriend the birds, yet I would 
like to have them share with me. For 
plums a patch may be allotted to them and 
the pigs and poultry. 
Setting Out. —The holes should be prepar¬ 
ed by digging out the earth for a much larger 
space than the size of the tree, so that the 
roots may not be at all cramped. Throw 
all good earth on one side the hole, and all 
poor soil cast away as worse than useless 
around the roots of a fruit tree. The usual 
size of the holes may be three to four feet 
in diameter, and two to three feet deep. 
These are to be filled with loose rich earth, 
mingled with composted manure enough to 
give the tree a good start, but in no case 
allowed to come in contact with the roots. 
It is a mark of good management to supply 
liberally the outer parts of the hole with 
compost, which will decay and mix with the 
soil by the time the roots are ready to strike 
out for food. Let the filling be heaped a 
little above the surface with good, rich ma¬ 
nure, to allow for the settling of the soil 
about the tree. 
If the transplanting be done in the fall, a 
much greater heap of earth, say a mound of 
from one to two feet high, may be made to 
much advantage, as a protection against 
high winds, extreme cold, surplus water, 
&c. I am no advocate for watering trees 
when set out, and through the season, unless 
it should prove extremely dry, when a daily 
watering of a few pails full to each tree until 
it rains, may save it. It will be remember¬ 
ed that in my last article I proposed as a 
substitute for all this trouble, puddling and 
mulching, which once done is done for the 
season. 
In regard to after culture, nothing will 
compensate for neglect. Nursing, care and 
attention must be given to fruit trees as well 
as to any crop of the farm. Grass and 
weeds are to be kept down, and manure ap¬ 
plied and dug in. A little pruning and short¬ 
ening-in, every season, scraping off moss, 
