St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1861-04-18
agricultural.
From Moore's Rural New Yorker.
TAKE CARE OF FRUIT TREES.

What pays better than an orchard :?
What is more neglected ? ! beg to
suggest that the orchard don't pay in
consequence of the neglect, but in
spite of it, and l assert that the
orchards that receive the most care,
or rather the best, pay the largest
profits. The least that any honest
man, l came very near saying, could
do for the friends (the trees) that
serve him so faithfully, is to thin the
branches when they are thick, with
out hacking off the big limbs ; stir
the soil carefully, without injuring the
roots remove the moss and rough
bark, without injuring the skin and
apply sufficient manure to keep the
soil good, without fraud or other
delay" The trimming should be i'm
med;ately performed, there is no time
after the ground settles, and the
rest of the prescription six hours
thereafter If you wait till "next
week." you will wait till next year,
and in the meantime you will be
doing what won't pay" half as we'll.
If orchards, like horses would back
up at once, and refuse to 60 at all,
unless they get their feed, l am thinking
the women would make fuss if the
men didn't start. But the poor pa
tient tree will make desperate effort
to bear right in the face of contumely
and abuse. l wish to goodness that
a little of the spirit of South Carolina
would get into the russets. wish
all of us who neglect our orchards,
had to cat dumplings for whole year,
filled with potato balls, and pies and
apple sauce compounded Of onions
and horse-radish. | tell You solemnly,
that rctributive justice" according
to my understanding of it, demands
it 1t is crime, and nothing short,
to cripple, by neglect even, any Of the
bounties prepared by Providence for
the human race. You can read about
the unjua aeuard in Luke XVI chap,
LIST to 18th verses.
We've DO right to ask the women
to bake and steam and stew etcrnally,
when better favored dish, all pre-
pared, can be found on pear, peach,
plum, apple or cherry tree. Read
what DR.. Hall says, and there is,
perhaps, no higher medical authority
among us:
"There is scarcely an article of
vegetable food more widely useful,
and more universally loved than the
apple. Why every farmer in the
nation has not an apple orchard,
where the trees will grow at all, is
one of the mysteries. Let every fam
lily lay in from two to ten barrels, and
and it will be to them the most ccono-
mical investment in the whole range
Of culinarics A raw mellow apple is
digested in an hour aud a half /; while
boiled cabbage requires five hours.
The most healthful desert which can
be placed on the table, is baked
apple. If taken freely at breakfast,
with coarse bread and butter, without
meat or flesh of any kind, it has an
admirable effect on the general sys-
TEN, often removing constipation, cor
recting aciditics, aud cooling off
fcbrile conditions, more eflectually
than the most approved medicines.
If families could be induced to sub.
stitute the apple, sound, ripe, and
luscious, for the pies, cakes, and can
dies, and other swectmeats with which
their children are too often indiscrcet
ly stuffed, there would be diminu
ton in the sum total of doctors bill iI
a single year, sufficient to lay in g
stock of this delicious fruit for whole
seasons USE"