Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-21
Orchard and Garden Notes.

Coal ashes are beneficial to clay soils
 Testing seeds will save much time and vexation
 Currant and gooseberry bushes should be pruned every year.
 Be ready at the first opening in the spring to set out trees.
 Bone dust and wood ashes are good fertilizer for strawberries.
 All trees should be transplanted be- fore the leaves start out
 It is best to cover all wounds made in pruning with paint or oil.
 Too large and too thick heads on the fruit trees should always be avoided.
 A little salt sprinkled around quince trees will be beneficial to them.
 All imperfect and diseased branches, vines and trees should be burned.
 Equal parts of rosin and tallow make a good covering for wounds on trees. Too much pruning is as bad as too lit tie. Both extremes should be avoided. For grapes, trellises are always pre- ferable to stakes, and then the vines should be allowed to grow naturally. While salt is beneficial to trees, a lit- tie too much will kill them. It helps to make plant food available.
 All fruit trees will send up many shoots which will need trimming off This should be done as soon as the shoots make their appearance.
 i'rune from the start. Trees that are allowed to make a haphazard growth are rarely satisfactory in any way.
 By painting over the wounds made in pruning theN bark covers over the wounds little by little, and no rotting of the in- ner wood takes place.
 When large branches are broken off by windstorms, cut off the stuff smooth with saw or knife and cover the wound with paint.
 If quinces are given good, rich soil. with a sharp knife, and fine, moist soil thorough cultivation, careful and early pruning the fruit can almost always be grown with profit. Growing clover in the orchard and blowing it under is about as good and as cheap a method of manuring the soil for the trees as can be well followed
 In planning out the garden arrange for successive crops. Plan to have the ground occupied all through the growing season with a good crop.
 Close planting of pear trees is believed by many good growers to be an advan- tage, as in this way the trees help to protect each other
 In selecting seeds for the garden give the first attention to the quality and it's adaptability to your soil and climate. Rely on standard sorts for the crop. Try novelties sparing1y.
 Fruit on the farm always helps it's selling value, even though the trees have not as yet come into full bearing The
 
 buyer takes this into account.
 All the fungus diseases of plants and trees are contagious The contagon is carried from year to year in the diseased parts be it in the leaf, fruit or branch. The presence of any of this diseased ma terial one year increases the chance for disease the next.
 Arrange in good season to spray. The advantages are so evident, and the cost in comparison to the benefits is so great that fruit grower who desires to make the most out of his orchard cannot afford not to spray.
 The prices are poor and there is little demand for scrub dairy cows. but he who raises Jerseys, even though they be grades always finds a market at paying prices for them. It is hard to sell what no one wants to buy, and 1t behooyes us, therefore, to study the market and have on hand what the world wants.
 Generally, it Is safe to say that potash and bone fertilizers are best adapted to fruits, and they are generally understood to be more lasting in their effects than most other commercial fertilizers; the potash can be most readily procured and applied in the form of muriate of pot ash
 It is unwise to sell corn if it can be fed to stock. If there Is an insufficient number of animals to consume the pro- duce then procure more. The manure sometimes represents what has been saved in feeding, the farm being improv- ed to that extent.
 Consular reports state that American apples command the highest prices in Europe.
 The profit from the cultivation of one portion of the farm is often wasted upon