little, and seldom pick off apples, confining themselves to what they can get upon the ground. The windfalls in almost every case contain at least one apple worm, so that we consider it an actual benefit to let them eat as many as they please, if it is a hundred bushels; we are glad to get rid of them, and it is much cheaper than to pick them up.

I have in my mind another treatment of an old orchard which I saw in New Gloucester. The soil was very similar to thisgood orchard land. The owner had recently put in a team strong enough to carry the plow right through at considerable depth, and I never before saw so many roots sticking out. It was harsh treatment. I did not see it again for five or six years; but when I did, more than half the trees were dead and gone. It will not answer to plow an old orchard and break off the roots in any considerable quantity; they need their roots. The better mode is to improve the land by top dressing.

MR. PEIRCE. If he had cut off half the tops, would he not have saved them?

MR. PERLEY. He did prune severely. Perhaps the trees were too old too far gone; there is a point beyond which it is impossible to revive an old orchard. The one I spoke of on my own farm was not more than sixty years old.

In regard to grafting, I prefer to take good thrifty seedlings from the nursery; plant them in the orchard, and when they are large enough, graft into the limbs from one inch to an inch and a half in diameter. There are some varieties that will not, in this climatę, make good trees by being budded in the nursery; one such is the Baldwin, our most important apple. It is of no manner of use to purchase Baldwin trees budded in the nursery. They will not do anything. I have budded them in the nursery myself, and I have seen them purchased from good nurseries, grown by faithful, honorable men. It was not the fault of the nurseryman ; the fault is in the tree itself. It must be grown, if grown at all in Maine, by planting strong, hardy seedlings in the orchard, and grafting in the limbs, when of suitable size.

A word here in regard to the position of grafts. We often see trees grafted where those who do it seem to be afraid to cut the best limbs; they graft into little stunted limbs and leave the best ones upon the tree. What is the result? The grafts never grow well and there they stand year after year.

The proper way is to

graft into the best limbs, and those in the best position to make a

new top. You must consider that you are about to ruin the old top, for the sake of getting a new and better one. You can hardly pass through the country anywhere without seeing this mistake made in grafting.

To enter a little more into detail in regard to the borer. The hole which we see in the tree, from an inch to two feet from the ground, in the Spring, is that from which the bug-I will call him a bug, because we shall all understand that comes out in the latter part of May or early in June. Within two or three weeks, the female lays her eggs and they hatch in July. The eggs are laid in two rows of four eggs each, and one at each end. They are always placed in that position. You seldom see the borer. The first year they simply bore through the bark. You will find at the foot of the tree the reddish castings which they throw out, and if you examine closely enough you have only to cut through with your jack-knife, without wounding the wood or the tree in the least, hardly cutting through the outer bark, and you may kill eight out of ten of the borers. They lodge themselves between the wood and the bark the next winter, and the following spring they commence their most destructive work. They set at work with their auger and bore upwards, and if they are not taken out as early as June or July, they will have got so far that it is of little use to follow them. Before that time, you may dig them out with your knife very easily. I sometimes use a wire and frequently a spear of grass will kill them, but after July you had better not undertake to cut them out; you will damage the tree more than the borer will. I prefer to fight this insect by extermination rather than by attempting to put on anything repulsive, for the reason that if he is once killed, he is gone, but if you drive him from one tree he goes to another. If he does not attack the apple-tree, he will attack your mountain ash or thorn tree. The second year, after having completed his growth, he bores up the trunk. There the chrysalis is formed and lies through the winter, and the next spring it comes out. The first year, and the early part of the second year, are the proper times to fight them. If any one understands the habits of the insect, it is easy to take care of it.

The most shameful sight I ever saw in an orchard was in Massachusetts. I counted twenty-five or thirty nests of the tent caterpillar in a single tree in the old State of Massachusetts, and every tree had more or less on it. Now it is one of the simplest

things in the world to take care of the tent caterpillar; it only requires a little attention. We all know that the eggs of this caterpillar are laid, several hundred of them, in a little ring on the ends of the twigs. They hatch out just as the leaves are forming and grow two or three weeks before they become large enough to scatter about. While they are feeding upon the leaves their habits are very regular. Unless the weather is bad, they come out of their nests about eight or nine o'clock in the morning to feed; return in the heat of the day and lie idle; then in the afternoon they come out again. You can destroy them very easily when they are in their nests with your hand, or in many other ways.

The aphides or plant-lice are a very serious damage to young trees. Sometimes, when you think your trees are all nice and healthy, you will find the ends of the twigs covered with those little greenish lice, and wonder where so many came from. They live upon the juices of the tree, and unless removed, are very injurious. In regard to the rapidity with which they multiply, Reaumur says that six thousand millions may be produced in five days. They not only lay eggs, but as soon as they are hatched, he says they begin to produce without copulation. They are a most wonderful insect. They can be easily destroyed by dipping the twigs into whale oil soap, diluted, or anything that will destroy them and not destroy the foliage of the tree.

The bark lice are a serious injury under some circumstances. These can be best taken care of by washing; it requires sometimes pretty thorough scraping; you may even be obliged to put a little sand in. The curculio, which is so very destructive to the plum, is also an enemy to the apple. Our most tender skinned varieties, as for instance the Nodhead, are frequently stung by the curculio, and the value of the fruit very much diminished. But the worst enemy of the apple in the State of Maine is the codling moth, or apple worm. Dr. Trimble of New Jersey, has studied the habits of that insect and gives us his method of destroying it, which he thinks will prove effectual. It is to wind. hay bands around the tree, and let the insect, when it comes to form the cocoon, make it in the hay and then take the band off and burn it. It is a good deal of work; but when we come to harvest our apples in the fall, and out of five barrels find three of them so wormy as to be unfit for market, we begin to see the necessity of spending a few minutes in taking care of that enemy.

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I cannot help saying a word about harvesting. Two winters ago, in passing from my place to Portland, I was stopping at a tavern, and a man brought along some Porter apples, as he called them, to sell. The tavern keeper said he thought it was out of season, and asked me to see if they were Porters. I examined the apples, and they looked like Porters, they tasted like Porters, and they were Porters. I asked the man how he kept them so late, and he said simply by careful handling. He picked each one with his own hands, and they were not bruised in the least. One reason why Western fruit brought into this State usually brings a good price is careful handling, so that it is not bruised. Now, in order to pick apples without bruising, the basket should be lined. Take a half bushel basket, with a hook, so that you can hang it up in the tree within reach; instruct your men to lay the apples into the basket, not drop them an inch. Just as sure as an apple is dropped, if it is not more than one or two inches, it will be bruised. The bruise may be slight, but it is a bruise. Take the Yellow Bellflower, for instance; the skin is almost white, and a very little bruise will suffice to injure it. I never had a man yet who could bring in a half bushel of Bellflower apples without showing that he had dropped them. The utmost care is required in handling all the way through. My own practice is, to have them gathered into half bushel baskets, set in a wagon, and taken to the storing house, and there they are laid carefully into the barrel.

In regard to packing into barrels, we farmers of Cumberland and Oxford, and all about, are verily in fault. We send our apples to market in poor barrels. We would not buy a barrel of flour in such a package; you would say that the flour could not be good packed in such a miserable looking barrel. In the first place, you should have good barrels, and they ought to be uniform. If you can get flat-hooped barrels, let all the hoops be flat, and not part flat and part round. Let the outside of the barrel be clean, of course, but the inside must be thoroughly clean; thoroughly wash every barrel, and have them completely dry before the fruit is put in. We send too many poor apples to market-too many wormy apples-too many small apples; and we must expect the price to be low as long as we put up so poor fruit. Better fruit will command a better price; good fruit is always in demand. In filling a barrel, it should be frequently rocked, not violently, so as to bruise the fruit, but gently, so that every apple will take its place. Fill the barrel a little more than full, about up to the top of the

chimb, place the head on and press it down with a lever or screw. You will spoil the upper layer, but you had far better spoil that the than have apples loose.

In regard to facing the fruit in the barrel; I do not believe in "deaconing" a barrel of apples-that is to say, putting good ones on top and anything that happens underneath; but I do believe in "facing." What is facing? I suppose you all know, it is simply taking some good, fair apples, and placing them on the bottom of your barrel, the stem end down. Then fill up your barrel, head it up, and turn it over, and mark the other end for the top end. When that barrel is opened you see a layer of very handsome apples. Now, the dealers to whom I sell my apples say, "We do not want you to 'deacon,' but we can sell your apples better if you will just face them." There is no cheating about it. It is understood that if you face a barrel of apples, it is simply for the beauty of the apples when the barrel is opened. That is a very simple thing, and inasmuch as it is not dishonest, I have begun to practice it.. I must say, that when I go into Portland and see the Western apples opened there, every barrel faced, they look beautifully; and our apples will look just as well if we take the same care.

In regard to marketing, we must either market ouselves, or sell to agents. If we market ourselves, we must keep the run of the market, and know what apples are worth. If we market through an agent, we must take care that we have an honest man to sell for us.

I have already occupied too much time, but I cannot help urging the farmers of Cumberland and Oxford and all the country towns on these granite hills, to plant new orchards. Some of us have got pretty well along in life; I see many gray heads here. I did not begin to plant pears until I was past forty, but I am enjoying the fruits now. I thought then it was pretty late, but if a man is forty or fifty years old, it is not too late to plant an apple orchard. If he wants to leave a good farm to his children, a good orchard is the best thing he can leave, and he will know better how to take care of it than young people will. Let him start one, then. I intend to start one. I have seven acres which I intend to underdrain and put out apple trees. I may not see any fruit from it, but I intend the trees shall be there if I live two years. Certainly apples can be grown upon this soil better than any other crop. We must raise other things; there are farms which will