Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-08-01
Fowls in the Orchard

APPOINTMENTS IN the Aiantlt
States are strongly recommending
the plan of keeping chickens in the
orchards. BY building the chicken
house adjoining the orchard, or in
one corner of it, the fowls can have
ample range during the day and be
easily taken care OF at night. Such
an orchard should be seeded down
with some kind of tenacious grass,
and white clover is perhaps the best
thing to use. II has been thought
by some husbandmen, that the pres
ence of any kind of grass in an
orchard tends to invite II great many
fruit-destroying insects. Expert
men.s prove that tue contrary of this
is true. Those insects that find n
natural home in the grass never
leave it. Grasshoppers, rrickets
and many kinds of beetles live and
die upon the ground, without ever
ascending u foot high on trees of any
kind. The mischievous insects most
dreaded by fruit-raisers, come forth
from the ground on of holes bur-
rowed there by the female when she
deposited her '.''. "a the Autumn.
This is prove ;. Tie fact that APP
pie and peach trees growing on
plowed ground often suffer most
seriously from the ravages of the
various kinds of borcrs. The worms,
too, that infect so many varieties of
apples and plums, all seem to spring,
originally, from the mold stratum of
the soil. These creatures, while in
the embryo state, ascend the trees
and institute new Transformation
by depositinS their eggs in tho heart
of the young blossoms. After the
petals have fallen, and the young
fruit appears, n grub is found in
each sickly or otherwise affected
specimen. Such fruit falls off ut an
early stage, or puts on II rapid and
fungus growth, pierced TO the core
by worm holes, and, of course,
quite unfit for all legitimate pur-
poses. Now colony of healthy
fowls will wholly prevent all these
evils. Scratching in the ground for
food, they are ever on the alert for
burrowing insects and nothing can
escape their scrutiny. In this way,
sickly and unproductive orchards
have been reclaimed from an appa-
rently fatal decline and brought up
again to q healthfnl condition. An
Eastern journal makes the following
sensible and instructive remarks on
this subject: 1t is asserted, and
we have no doubt that it is true,
that the keeping of fowls in an ap-
pie orchard has n strong influence
in securing good crop Of tiult,
and, as q consequence, tends to give
health and vigor to The trees. The
insects of various kinds--indeed
multitudinous in number-have more
to do with weakening the trees and
emasculating the fruit than many
have the least idea of. just think
of the havoc the little red spider
produces upon stalwart evergreens
as we'll as the plants in the green
house, and some estimate may be
made of the effects of the many in
sects that infest the apple tree and
its fruit. All these insects, more or
less inhabit the ground, and hence
in oil stages they are subject to the
searching eye of the fowl, and are
thus destroyed before they are capa-
BILE of attacking the trees. The
droppings of the fowl, too, have a
most enriching effect upon the land,
and can do no injury by its peculiar
strength, from the fact that it is scat
tered so thinly over it.
ADvIcEs from Memphis go to indi-
cate that the yellow fever is slowly
but surely making onward progress.
A camp for poor people has been
established, near the city, and q
regiment Of negro soldiers have
offered their services in keeping the
peace. The number of daily re-
ported deaths is steadily on the in
crease, and most kinds of business,
is once more, at standstill.
REV. j. r. Thompson returned,
T,oeJov frop, b;o <onr ooct Of fha