TOPICS OF INTEREST TO FRUIT-GROWERS. 529 
ing year, as if these leaves when once formed, had remained 
till the end of the season, in a healthy and efficient state. 
In the early part of summer we have not unfrequently a suc¬ 
cession of dry hot days ; during this time, heat necessarily ac¬ 
cumulates in the soil, and if the dry spell is followed, as often 
happens, by a drenching thunder storm, followed by two or 
three hot close, steamy days, young shoots make rapid pro¬ 
gress. We experienced something like this last summer : 
about the 14th of June, we had fine, warm, growing weather ; 
from the 16th to the 24th, it was very hot, with a strong wind, 
in the middle of nearly every day during that time; in the af¬ 
ternoon of the 24th, there was thunder with very heavy rain, so 
that water stood on the land in pools ; the weather continued 
very hot until the end of the month, when it became somewhat 
cooler, and about the middle of July, crops, hereabouts, were 
beginning to suffer from drouth. The curling of the leaves is 
probably due to the action of bright sunshine with a dry at¬ 
mosphere ; but whether the mischief is done on the occurrence 
of dry, bright weather, immediately succeeding a period of 
rapid growth and before the tissue of the leaves has become 
hardened, or, only after protracted dry weather, when vegeta¬ 
tion generally suffers from drought, I am not prepared to say, 
my observations hitherto,not having been sufficiently accurate; 
but the fact that the previously formed leaves on spurs re¬ 
mained healthy, would seem to indicate that the former is not 
likely to be the case. But which ever it may be, it has occurred 
to me, that mulching will go far towards preventing this evil. 
One of the able and energetic Editors of the Wisconsin Far¬ 
mer, remarked in the last June number, “ Common fruit trees, 
well-set, and well mulched, can hardly die, but omit the mulch¬ 
ing, and they can hardly live,’ ? arid all who have had much ex¬ 
perience in planting, will admit that the benefits derived from 
the practice are hardly too strongly stated. If this, then, is so 
favorable to healthy root action in the case of a recently planted 
tree, why should it not prove equally beneficial to young trees 
for a few years at least, after they have become established ? 
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