The Plymouth Democrat., 1869-09-16

A FEW days since we had occasion to
visit small village, about eighteen miles
from the city of New York on the northern
side of Long Island; and in our walks in
the neighbOrhood we came across an orch
ard of dwarf pear-trees, planted in one of
those moist depressions on high ground so
common on Long Island. 1t was well
drained naturally, and sheltered by woods
and still higher ground on every side ex
cept the south. The trees appeared to be
from six to seven years planted, and were
loaded with fruit; evidently enjoying
their moist, sheltered situation, and en-
deavOring by every means in their power
to show appreciation of their position;
yet they were nearly all diseased; the
fruit, although in great quantities, small,
gnarled, and insect-eaten, and certainly
gave every indication that in two or three
years more they would die out. And why
should they not? The ground was over
grown with couch grass and all sorts of
| thieving weeds of the worst character,
some OF them higher than the trees, which
| were certainly experiencing the most un-
grateful neglect from their owner; who,
| when they at last succumb, will, no doubt,
come down to the Farmers Club, or the
Fruit Growers Association at Whitlock' S,
and give jeremiad on the deterioration
and decay of fruits at the present day; in
suitlng the memory Ofthe poor trees whom
he so grossly injured and neglected while
they were living
| Passing through the orchards Ofanother
| old farmer who has resided on the same
farm for the past f0rty-thrce years, he
showed us one in which some of the trees
must have been sixty or seventy years old,
but where he had planted trees in the va
cant spaces about forty years ago. The
Older trees were bearing fruit of rather poor
quality, but the younger ones were nearly
all barren; what fruit did set always
dropping off before ripening This fact
he considered as fully proving his theory
that fruit was dying out. "The trees
didn't bear as they did when he was a boy,
| about sixty or seventy years ago" Why
should they do so? The orchard has
probably not had a coat Of manure for the
past fifty years, if, indeed, it has had any
since it was planted; and yet this farmer
could grow good crops of grain or grass,
not begrudging, as he told us, fifty or sixty
dollars an acre for manure for his grain
crop; and yet he could not see that his
crops of apple-seeds were as exhauSting to
his land as crops of wheat or corn. 1t
was not that at all, Did not the old trees
| iN"l, anu thO Iittl pldItcu clicS ulu not
We could not make him understand that
might makes right even among trees; and
that the old trees being firmly established
when he made the second planting, had
maintained their supremacy and over
topped, and, in great degree, smothered
the smaller ones.
At another house, standing little back
from the roadside, with an acre or two O
land about it, we were astonished to fint
some very large peach-trees loaded will
fruit of very fine quality. 1t was the resi-
dcDce Of a dominic of horticultural tastes
, as the well-kept vegetable garden ant
, well-carcd for fruit-trces showed Now
there is not farmer among the dominic.
congregation but is mystified about these
peach-trecs. peaches don't grow now a.
they used to when they were boys; they
can't grow any, they don't bear, and they
will have the yellows and die" Why thu
Aforesaid peach-trees should bear fruit
plenteously and keep green, and not di,
of at once, astonishes them. But the Sc
cret lies only in thorough and assiduou
culturc.-UearM and Home.