THE WISCONBIN FARMiER.



face drainage, witu perhaps an extra rich soil,
or high, to an almost gravel knoU, or, worse
than all, the leveL rich prairie, unprotected,
with no surface drainage, and a stiff clay sub-
soil.
  With such knowledge as this before him, and
which should be attached to every order, no
honest nurseryman will send out such sorts as
Early Harvest, Early Joe, Primate, Fall Pippin,
Rambo, Twenty Ounce, Dominis, Swaar, Sweet
Gillflower, and this elass of but half hardy
and tender sorts, and which only succeed in
special localities and with exeellent treatment;
but would, unless distinctly preferred, gladly
substitute Golden and Perry Russets, Talman
Sweet, Red Astrachan, St. Lawrence, Fameuse,
Cider, Northern Spy, Red Romanite, Sweet
Wine, Pomme Grise, Colvert, W. Seeknofurth-
er, and some others. There re localities where
the first list is equally desirable with the last,
but without some direct knowledge of location
and exposure, many otherwise choice locations
are almost lost in value to the orchardist.
  Before planting, examine closely your trees,
see those fine feeding roots, nature's choice,
precious gift; now don't smother them in kind-
ness, by planting too deeply, or by digging so
deep a hole, far below its surroundings, that
you have a sink hole waiting the reception of
all the surface water. No tree will thrive in
such a condition. It is only making a low, wet
and unnatural position out of what might have
been otherwise a well drained position.
  AU the large fruits are equally sensitive.
Plant dwarf pears especially shallow. If the
quince stock has been worked high, with a
sharp knife remove the lower tier of roots, cut-
ting away the entire stock below the first well



formed roots below the union. A great fault
with this class of trees has been long stock
plants and high working, rendering it absolute-
ly necessary to plant very deep to cover the
union, or else leave it far above the surface,
exposed to weather changes to which it is sen-
sitive.
  Remember the small fruits.  How many
.ale .i amci tinns lustkr around the old



strawberry bed I And the long row of Dutch
currants, trim them up, manure around them,
dig it in, and see, some of you who have been
neglecful of these little things, if it "Idon't
pay; " and report progress, of course, through
the FAzuXs.                 0. S. WILLEY.

              The WId Plum.
  Ma. EDITOR:-I wish to call the attention
of your readers to our native fruit commonly
known as the wild plum. I have had some ex-
perience in its cultivation, and offer the follow-
ing remarks for your consideration.
  A few years ago I went to a grove or thicket
and selected some of the best plums I could
find; from these I took the stones and placed
them in the ground before they became dry.
Early in the following spring I planted the
stones in rows four feet apart, the stones being
placed about six inches apart in the rows.-
When the trees were two years old I tranplant-
ed some of them, setting them eight feet apart
each way.  I planted a row of potatoes or
other vegetables between the rows of trees one
way, and still had room to work between the
rows with a horse and plow. In this way I
kept the ground under cultivation and free
from weeds two or three years; afterwards I
cultivated the ground without trying to raise
any crop between the trees.
  The following is the result of my experiment.
When my trees were four years old, some of
them blossomed, but the frost killed the fruit;
the fifth year I had some very good fruit; the
sixth and seventh years I had an abundance
of excellent fruit, not only for my own family,
but bushels for my neighbors, who think some
of my plums as good as any they ever tasted.



My trees are now seven years old, and I think
some of them bore a peck of plums each the
last season.
  The largest trees are nearly ten feet high,
three inches in diameter, and the branches
spread so far that they cover nearly all of the
space between the trees. I have more than a*
hundred trees which have borne fruit. On
Lmnus of them the fruit was extra: on a Iase



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