534 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 24, 1891. 
Grand Junction at 24s. per cwt. At 150 trees per acre parties interested 
can do their own figuring. My Peach trees, six years from planting, 
are now full of bloom. 
“ The cost of planting varies greatly. For instance, Apples, fifty trees 
per acre, cost £6 6s., while an acre of Pears, 18 by 18, 134 trees at Is. 
per tree, cos' £6 14s. per acre for the trees alone. 1 make the product of 
the land, by cultivating between the rows, bear more than all expenses 
of interest, taxes, and care of trees until the orchard comes into bearing. 
An orchard of Pear trees should be worth at ten years of age £300 per 
acre, Apple trees £120, Peach and Plum at five years £120, Apricots and 
Nectarines at five years £100, Prunes at five years £160. 
“ This is the best all-round fruit country with which I am acquainted. 
No wormy Apples a 3 yet, and I trust the fruit growers, by ‘ spraying ’ 
their orchards, if they should appear, will keep the codlin moth 
Bubdued. 
“ The great tendency of fruit tree3 with us is to overbear, and some 
varieties must of necessity exhaust themselves if thinning the fruit is 
not practised. I think the culture of the Pear for long shipment is to 
be specially recommended, and our dry climate offers superior facilities 
for drying fruit. I think the Apricot, and more especially the Prune, 
should be largely planted for open air drying. 
“ I have answered, in a general way, your questions. To tell all the 
profits of fruit culture in Grand Valley would not do. People must 
come and see for themselves to realise the great advantages we possess 
over California in freedom from insect pests and nearness to market, 
making, as I believe, a bearing orchard of ten acres in our district realise 
as much nett profit as a California orchard of forty acres of the same age 
and the same varieties.” 
Mr G-. B. McG-ranahan, proprietor of the Garnet Fruit Farm, 
near Delta, in Delta County, writes :— 
“ My orchard is not for sale. I have twenty-six acres now set to 
fruit, and £4000 will not buy it. I have never had a failure of any 
kind of fruits since old enough to bear. I had about ten tons of 
Grapes this season on 1700 Vines, 250 bushels of Peaches on ninety 
trees which brought from 3d. to 74d. per lb. As there are no orchards 
that I know of being offered for sale, it is pretty hard to say what they 
are worth, but the Eastern and California criterion is that the land set 
to standard fruits is worth the third year after setting £1 per tree, 
which in Apples (fifty per acre) set 30 feet apart, would make a value 
of £50 per acre, in addition to the value of the intervening unimproved 
land. In Peaches (170 trees to the acre) this would be £170. I had 
Peach trees, set five, years This season, that produced; from £4 to £6 
each. 
“ Mr. A. M. Olds, one and a half mile from Grand Junction, has 
ten acres of fruit in bearing, for which, I am informed, he refused this 
summer £1600. If fruit lands in California that bring a revenue of 
£40 per acre per year (fruit selling from £4 to £6 per ton) are estimated 
to be worth, and sell for from £200 to £400 per acre, does it not look 
reasonable that, our lands are much undervalued, when we consider the 
fact that we in Colorado receive for our fruits from three to five times 
as much as the California growers receive for theirs ? ” 
Such is the experience and testimony of practical fruit growers 
in Colorado, and as neither they nor the writer have any lands to 
sell, the only object of this letter is to show English readers what 
can be done here, and perhaps the interesting character of the 
information and the desire to be explicit, will excuse the length 
of this communication.— Thomas Tonge, Formerly of Manchester, 
England. 
TWIN BOILERS. 
Where opportunity occurs I should strongly advise everyone 
to put down twin boilers, especially where all the houses are heated 
from one stokehole. The boilers can be worked during alternate 
weeks, or jointly where necessary, in the case of sharp frost or con¬ 
tinuous cold winds in the spring where the position is an exposed 
one. It is surprising what a difference two or three shovelfuls of 
fire will make in the second boiler to the heating of the whole hot- 
water pipes. Instead of the water becoming cold when returned 
into this boiler by the circulation from the one in use, the small 
amount of fire maintains it in a warm state ; indeed by the economic 
use of two fires a saving in fuel is effected in spells of bad weather. 
More fuel is required to maintain the heat with one boiler than 
with two properly managed. 
But my chief aim in recommending the use of two is in the 
case of a breakdown, such as we have just experienced. Our 
boilers, saddle with waterway back, were fixed thirteen years since ; 
one of them a short time since developed a crack at the bottom, 
no doubt mainly caused by sediment from our chalky water settling 
there—the lowest place ; and this leads me to say that all saddle 
boilers should have a draw-off tap fixed to each side, by which 
means the boiler can be thoroughly rinsed out at least twice each 
year. Many boilers of this pattern have but one such tap. The 
opposite side cannot then be cleaned thoroughly out. No matter 
how the water is rushed into the boiler by turning on the valves, a 
certain amount of sediment will remain at the bottom, which 
prevents the water coming in contact with that part of the boiler, 
causing it to become unduly heated and burnt, and which in time 
develops a crack, which means removal. 
The chief advantage gained by the use of twin boilers is that 
the heat can be maintained in the houses all the same while the 
necessary repairs to the other are being effected, which means a lot 
in some cases, and at this time of the year especially. All boilers 
of this kind should be provided with valves on both the flow and 
return pipes, which when closed will enable the remaining boiler 
to provide heat. Even when the flues which pass over each boiler, 
separate of course and connect at the back into the main flue 
which leads to the chimney, have to be interfered with, temporary 
arrangements can be made to admit of the fire being employed. 
In our case the fixing of a new boiler in the place of the defective 
one, by the aid of an iron pipe 6 feet long and 9inches in diameter, 
we were enabled to construct a temporary flue, so that with the 
exception of a few hours one day while the last few joints were 
made, and the water had to be drawn off to enable the mains to be 
connected, we were able to maintain heat everywhere, which could 
not have been the case for at least four days had we not possessed 
twin boilers of the same pattern.—H. 
FEEDING PLANTS IN POTS. 
The solid (mineral) parts of plants, as shown by the analysis 
of their ashes, is very small, and the quantity of earth required by 
each tree or plant depends on the component parts of the soil in 
which the trees are grown. This was demonstrated by the re¬ 
searches of the younger Saussure, and taken advantage of by 
T. A. Knight, Esq., for growing fruit trees in pots for experimental 
purposes. The late Mr. Thomas Rivers, acting on the same lines, 
proved that fruit trees could be kept healthy and fruitful over 
many years in pots without change of soil, though he also practised 
top-dressing and partial renewal of the soil, as better enabling 
him to attain greater excellence in the fruit and increase of 
plant without enlarging the rooting area—shifting into larger pots. 
This system has been extended by his son, Mr. T. Francis Rivers, 
and is practised on a large scale at the Sawbridgeworth Nurseries, 
Herts, with almost every description of fruits calculated to afford 
interest, enjoyment, and profit. 
The purpose of soil seems to be that of permitting plants to fix 
themselves firmly in the earth, to afford them a regular supply of 
water, and a sufficient quantity of organisable matter. This is proved 
by the rapid growth of plants in pots, the small quantity of turfy 
loam, or soil enriched with manure, leaf soil or other substance, 
sustaining them until it becomes exhausted. Thus a Vine eye, 
inserted early in the year, and the plant shifted into its largest pot 
in June, produces a cane in a 10 inch pot with firm, hard, ripe 
wood, and eyes like nuts by August, and capable of producing 
Grapes the following year of little less weight than that of the 
soil in which the Vine is growing when deprived of organic 
matter and water. Mr. Knight states that he “grew a seedling 
Plum stock in a small pot, which attained a height of 9 feet 
7 inches in a single season, which is, I believe, a much greater 
height than any seedling tree of that species was ever seen to 
attain to in the open soil.” This is conclusive proof that Mr. Knight 
used a much richer soil in potting his seedling than a similar one 
would have had in the “ open soil,” where supplies must be drawn 
from a large extent and depth, which is sufficient to account 
for the discrepancy. But be the soil ever so rich in available plant 
food the stores of it in a small pot must necessarily soon become 
exhausted ; and the size of the pot, the increase of rich material 
would need to be frequent and considerable to sustain growth in 
the tree or plant equal in future seasons to that attained by it in 
the small pot in the first year, otherwise the plant must become 
stunted and dwarfed—a mere pigmy of the type. Soil exhaustion, 
however, is only relative, for the seedling Plum stock would only 
exhaust the soil of certain elements—potash, soda, magnesia, lime, 
phosphoric, sulphuric, and silicic acids, with peroxide of iron, some 
more than others, and of all some, causing the seedling Plum stock 
to languish, yet the soil is practically rich, fertile for another plant. 
All the same it is for ever rendered sterile as a soil for the Plum, 
and it can only be made fertile by restoring those substances to 
it which have been abstracted from it by the Plum, and become 
fixed therein—the wood and bark. 
To sustain the soil in fertility manure is given in two forms— 
solid and liquid. There are two kinds of the former—1, bulky ; 
2, concentrated. The bulky comprises stable and farmyard 
manure, animal and fowl manure, alone or mixed with vegetable 
substances, as straw, hay, and moss litter ; leaf soil, vegetable 
refuse, turf parings, and composts. These are used as a mulch or 
top-dressing to the larger-growing kinds of trees and plants, 
