196 
THE CULTIVATOR 
Juneating, and Bough apples; the White Primordian 
plum; the Amire Joannet, the Primitive or Little Musk, 
and Madeleine pear; and nearly all varieties of the apri¬ 
cot, ripen before or during wheat harvest; while the 
Early White Nutmegpeaeh immediately follows; and the 
Early Ann and Early Tillotson peaches produce excellent 
ripe fruit, at least two or three weeks before the common 
varieties of the red rare ripe, which are so generally 
considered as standing first on the list for early maturity. 
TALK ABOUT FRUIT. 
At the Farmer's meeting at the State House, Boston, on 
the evening of the 27th Feb., the subject for discussion 
was fruit and fruit trees. From the Mass. Plowman we 
condense the following: 
Mr. Breck of the N. E. Farmer, thought the best way 
to prevent the depredations of birds, on cherries, was to 
raise enough for them and ourselves too. 
Mr. B. thought the peach a valuable fruit, but in this 
climate it is very uncertain—it is sometimes killed by 
the severity of the winter. He prefers budding stocks in 
September. 
Mr. B. V. French thought orchards should be plow¬ 
ed, or a space around the trees be kept well dug. He 
prefers the spring for transplanting—washes with pot¬ 
ash water, sometimes lime—has used soap. He is much 
in favor of very deep plowing on first setting out an or¬ 
chard—had sometimes used a sub-soil plow, and stirred 
the ground more than twelve inches deep. He sets alter¬ 
nate rows of cherry, apple and pear trees, with peaches 
also, in the intermediate spaces. Prefers to set peach 
trees quite late, even after the blossom begins to appear. 
In pruning, he cuts no large limbs, and finds he needs to 
cut none if he begins to trim when the trees are young. 
Plums, he thinks, do best near salt water—but they are 
an uncertain fruit on account of the curculio; which no 
one lias as yet found an easy way of destroying. 
Mr. Gray thought the spring best for transplanting. 
He has had trees suffer much from dry weather, and has 
saved them by putting moss round them. [Probably 
straw or chaff would do about as well.] He thought it 
too much work to tar trees to stop canker worms. He 
has seen square boards placed about the trunks at the cost 
of a shilling each, which was preferable to tarring. A 
wadding was stuffed between the board and the tree, and 
tar put on the under side of the board out of the reach of 
the sun and rain, where it would keep soft much longer. 
He prefers to set apple trees 40 feet apart—prunes when 
young. 
Mr. G. thought the apple was the staple fruit of Mass, 
and a reasonable profit might be' expected from an or¬ 
chard. Pear trees may be easily raised here—they are 
longer than apple trees in coming to maturity, but they 
last longer. The old Endicott pear tree at Danvers, is 
now 150 years old. As to caterpillars, when young, the 
nests may easily be taken off with a conical brush. Can¬ 
ker worms will not annoy an orchard that is kept in till¬ 
age, so much as one that is left in grass. 
Hon. Mr. Dodge observed that the cultivation of fruits 
was an interesting employment, and we had here great 
inducements to engage in it. He had no fears that the 
influx of productions from the west rvould spoil the bu¬ 
siness here. If we make proper use of our advantages, 
we shall not be injured. He said farmers were under 
great obligations to the Horticultural Society for the in¬ 
troduction of new fruits and the investigating the subject 
of the various insects that destroy them. 
Mr. D. raised pear trees from seeds. For producing 
apple trees, he sows pomace, and sows ashes with it to 
correct the acid. He buds apple and peach stocks, the 
second year after they vegetate—buds peach trees the 
first summer—always takes buds that are fully matured, 
and suffers the little slip of wood to remain with the bud 
lest the eye should be injured. 
Mr. Cole said there was no necessity that apple and 
pear seeds should freeze before they will vegetate; but 
to ensure germination, it is necessary to keep them 
moist. He kept two boxes of seeds in a cellar, one was 
lcept wet, the other left dry—the wet ones came up rea¬ 
dily, but the dry ones did not vegetate till the next year. 
It seemed to be the general impression that it was best 
not to put trees deep in the ground when transplanted, 
and so far as experiments had been made, the plan of 
putting them entirely on the top of the ground, and co¬ 
vering the roots with compost of muck, loam, &c. seems 
to do very well. 
The editor of the Plowman says there was a greater 
unanimity of opinion on the subject of managing fruit 
trees, than there used to be a few years ago. This is an 
evidence of the advantage of comparing opinions. 
FRUIT TREES ON DIVISION LINES. 
“ Messrs. Editors —Although I do not suppose you 
consider the Cultivator as a law journal, yet your opin¬ 
ions on the following case would oblige at least one of 
your subscribers. When a fruit tree is planted so near a 
division line that a part of the branches passover the line 
or wall, to whom does the fruit on such branches belong? 
and has one neighbor a right to enter another one’s 
grounds to gather fruit so grown? Inquirer.” 
We are no lawyers; and the discussion of law ques¬ 
tions forms no part of the proper business of the Cultiva 
tor; yet as the queries proposed are fairly put, and relate 
to matters sometimes misunderstood, and consequently 
the sources of contention and litigation among neighbors, 
we shall give our notions on the subject; premising that 
in so doing, we have no intention of trespassing on the 
domains of the gentlemen whose right it is to discuss and 
settle all questions of law and equity. 
The answer to the first question is, that the right or ti¬ 
tle to the whole tree, trunk, branches and fruit, belongs 
to him on whose land the tree is standing. There is an 
old maxim, “ Whoever owns the ground, owns all above 
it up to the sky;” and this has doubtless led some to sup¬ 
pose that fruit in the case supposed by our correspond¬ 
ent, changed owners by passing a wall or line. The 
first decision reported of this law question, was in 1693, 
and to this effect; that if A. planted a tree so near the 
land of B. that its roots extended into B.’s land, then A. 
land B. were owners or tenants in common, of the tree, 
ifiut if all the roots grew in the land of A., although the 
[branches did reach over the land of B., the whole pro 
|perty was in A. This decision, was, however, so clear¬ 
ly erroneous, that it has been over-ruled and set aside by 
later authorities, both English and American. In the 
case of Lyman vs. Hale, decided in 1836, in Connecticut, 
where the whole subject was ably argued, it was deci¬ 
ded that when the trunk of a tree stands on the land of 
A., and send3 its branches over, and its roots into the 
land of B., such overhanging branches and the fruit are 
the sole property of A.; and if B. gather such fruit, he 
is liable to trespass on A. In the language of a Report 
made to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1841, “ The 
man who allows the branches of his tree to overhang his 
neighbor's farm, undoubtedly commits a wrong; but he 
does not thereby lose his title to those branches, any 
more than he would the title to his cattle by their being 
found trespassing, through his negligence, upon his 
neighbor's field.” 
The law respecting taking fruit grown as stated in the 
second query, would not seem quite as well settled as in 
(he first instance, and decisions are somewhat contradic¬ 
tory. In the reign of James I. it was decided that “ if a 
| tree grew in a hedge, and the fruit fall in another man’s 
jland, the owner may fetch it in another man's land;” but 
jin a case in 1832, it was decided that such right existed 
only where fruit so fell by accident: andChitty considers 
this last case as settling the law on this point. The law, 
however, respecting the first query, virtually decides the 
ilast. The man who plants a tree to overshadow his 
neighbor’s land, or sends its roots into his soil, does him 
an injury, and permits a nuisance, for which there are 
obvious and easy remedies. Justice Croke early decided 
that “one may cut down boughs if they hang over his 
ground,” and the Conn. Courts, in the case of Lyman vs. 
Hale, held the same doctrine. Chitty confirms this as 
the law, but in the spirit of a good citizen, adds, “It 
would seem that there ought to be a previous request to 
the neighbor to abate the nuisance, before I proceed to 
abate it myself.” Napoleon, who suffered not the minu 
