MULCHING ORCHARDS-CULTIVATION-PLANTING. 
87 
a powerful magnifying glass, appear as though 
they were coated with an enamel of pure quartz, 
and present an immense number of fine, sharp¬ 
cutting edges. Years of e x p osurejojh^, 
am assured that the blocks stand fire perfectly, 
and that there is no difficulty in selecting them 
so as to form the whole stone of exactly the 
same quality and of equal goodness throughout 
the whole thickness. 
The present price of millstones is about the 
same as French burr, but the great abundance 
of material and the constant increasing demand, 
will enable the company to supply stones or 
blocks at a price so much below those import¬ 
ed, that every American farmer has a direct 
interest in this American quarry. So far as 
my own opinion is worth in promotion of this 
new branch of home production, I give it 
most freely in favor of the Georgia burr over 
any other in the world. I saw many letters 
from millers to corroborate this opinion. I re¬ 
commend the proprietors to take immediate 
measures to introduce these stones into all the 
northern states. They should establish an 
agency at once in New-York City, not only for 
the sale of the manufactured millstones, but 
the blocks, also, so that those now manufactur¬ 
ing from imported blocks may obtain a full 
supply of an article not only superior in qual¬ 
ity, but less in price—one of the products of 
the teeming soil of America. 
Solon Robinson. 
Macon , Georgia, Jan. 6th, 1851. 
A. B. Allen & Co. are appointed the New- 
York agents for the above millstones, and will 
be pleased to answer any enquiries regarding 
them. 
MULCHING- ORCHARDS—CULTIVATION- 
PLANTING. 
In the September number of the Agricultu¬ 
rist is an editorial notice of my practice in 
mulching fruit trees; but as there are two or 
three errors of fact in the notice. I proceed to 
correct them, and detail further at length the 
benefits of such treatment. You say “ the trees 
were set in a hard clay soil, and had made little 
or no growth for four or five years past.” Not 
so. The soil is a rich clay loam, with a clay 
subsoil at the distance of a foot to 18 inches 
below the surface. The trees have been set 
about five years—were a scrubby lot of natural 
stocks from an old nursery, which, by the way, 
I never ought to have planted; for although I 
got them for half the price of good, thrifty 
worked trees, it was a decidedly bad bargain, 
as the latter kind of trees, set three years after¬ 
wards, are now quite equal to them in growth. 
Ao. A - 1-TrlllV.U 
was in the month of April, they were grafted 
at about branch high with good kinds, and 
most of the grafts took and grew well. The 
land was then in hoed crops and oats. But as 
I found it very difficult to keep teams from vex¬ 
ing and tearing the trees, I laid it down the sec¬ 
ond year to grass, since which it has been 
mowed. Every spring since it was so laid 
down, the trees have been well dug around the 
trunk for two or three feet each way, making a 
soft, cultivated bed of four to six feet in diam¬ 
eter. Still the trees did not make the growth 
they should have done, which I attributed main¬ 
ly to the excessively dry summers we have had 
for three years past, and the roots were exposed 
to drought, from the fact of the hare surface of 
earth immediately over them. 
In May, 1849, J dug a circular ditch, a spade 
deep and wide, about three feet from the trunk 
of every tree, and filled that with barnyard 
dung, laying the excavated earth partly over it, 
and threw the remaining soil around the stem 
of each tree. An excessively dry summer fol¬ 
lowed, and no sensible benefit was perceived. 
A few apples, however, were produced. Last 
April, I determined to try the virtues of mulching; 
and for that purpose, took several loads of old 
buckwheat straw and fresh marsh hay, and 
with a pitchfork, distributed a liberal forkful 
around the trunk of every tree, making a cov¬ 
ering of five or six feet in diameter. The effect 
was, as you observed; and although the sum¬ 
mer was nearly as dry as the year previous, 
the growth and bearing have been remarkable. 
Several times during the dryest weather, when 
the adjoining earth was parched and cracked, 
I lifted the mulch and found the earth beneath, 
cool, soft, and moist; and in addition to this 
benefit, it keeps down every weed and sucker 
from the roots. 
So decidedly serviceable have I found this 
proof, that I have prepared materials for mulch¬ 
ing all the fruit trees on the farm next year, 
some four or five thousand in number, of all 
kinds, in plowed land as well as in grass, satis¬ 
fied that in no other way can they be so rap¬ 
idly and cheaply cultivated. For this purpose, 
scarcely any decomposable vegetation comes 
amiss. Straw of all kinds, chip manure, spent 
tanner’s bark, hundreds of loads of which are 
left to decay about the tanneries, rotten wood, 
leaves of trees, &c. } all are useful, both in giv- 
