for two or three years. In splitting up
the body and roots of one of these, I dislodged scores of the borers, of
all ages and sizes--making quite a dinner for a hen and chickens that
happened to be nigh. This fact brought forcibly to my mind what I should
have thought of before, namely--that these dead and dying trees ought
not to be allowed to remain a day after their usefulness has departed;
but should be removed bodily and consigned to the flames. Otherwise they
remain as breeding places for the pests, to the great detriment of the
rest of the orchard. Cut away your decaying trees at once.

COAL ASHES.

Now that coal has become so common as a substitute for wood for fuel,
not only on the railroads and manufactories, but in the villages and on
the farms, wood ashes will still be harder to procure. Though not near
so valuable for the purposes for which wood ashes is chiefly used in
horticulture, it is believed that ashes from the coal has too great a
value to be wasted. It should all be saved and applied to some good
purpose on the garden or orchard. Has any one tried it as a preventive
to pear blight? or mildew on the gooseberry? or the grape rot? or for
the yellows or leaf-curl in peach trees? or for the rust in the
blackberry and raspberry? In any or all of these it may have a decided
value, and should be faithfully experimented with. As an absorbent
alone it ought to be worth saving, to use in retaining the house slops
and other liquid manures that are too often wasted.

ONE CAUSE OF FAILURE

in our orchard trees, of which we read and hear so much in late years,
is doubtless to be found in the fact that we fail to feed them properly.
A hog will fail to put on fat if he is not fed; a hen will not lay eggs
if she is starved for food; and is it more reasonable to expect an apple
or a peach or a pear tree to thrive and grow and yield of its luscious
fruit in perfection while it is being starved? Our fresh soils--some of
them at least--contain a fair proportion of the food needed to support
the life of a tree; we plant our orchards, and for some years, more or
less, they give us paying returns for our investments. But that food
will not always last; it is gradually exhausted, and we fail to feed
them again, or in that proportion their necessities require. They
languish and die; a disease seizes them, and we complain and grumble at
the dispensations of Providence.

Think of it, fellow fruit-growers; let us begi