Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1870 — Renovating Old Orchards. [ARTICLE]

Renovating Old Orchards.

So much has been sa : d about the “decline of orchards,” “renovating old orchards,” etc., and while we have had a watchful eye over many of the old orchards, we have sometimes noticed a favorable change made in unproductive old trees, as for instance When they are started into new life by manuring the land, dressing out old and partially decayed limbs, scraping off the rough bark and washing with strong soap suds, and keeping the trees free from insects, and by all these remedial agents instil a new lease of life into the trees, thereby getting a new growth and a lew crops of fruit. But that the tree is nevertheless on the decline, and its life and usefulness drawing to a close, is a fact that accords with all our observations in this direction.

Fruit trees have, as men and aninials, a period of existence; a life-time, and it is just as impossible to rejuvenate, and bring into new life; an old decaying apple tree, as to make an old man young and endeavor to trot him an'ew through a repetition of bis life of usefulness and produc i ven ess. We Jiave as little kith in bringing to usefulness, an old neglected orchard, as to expect much of a man or an animal that has suffered a decline from a life time of neglect and abuse. . When we survey the work%of Nature iwe see all things drifting along in the same inevitable direction, a birth, a period of existence, and a decline and end. If a child is neglected, it becomes most frequently, a"useless, worthless man. . So with animals, and so with orchards. He who designs to plant an orchard and does not have already determined that he will also attend to it for all time to come, had better throw his trees away and makeup his mind to do without trim. What would be thought of a man who, while planting a field of corn, hgd not certainly made up

his mind to give it all the attention that is needed to make a crop ? But how many plant orchards aud hedges, and never after give tbeae any care of any sort, and yet in due course of time expect to gather an abundance of luscious fruit, and see their lands protect _ed by a good hedge ’ If a man has lost neariyh lifetime in the neglect of his orchard, lid him not waste the remainder of his days in trying to force that orchard to become young again. Better, far, begin anew again, plant young trees; not four, or five, or six years old, but one nnd two-year-old trees. These suffer so little, in transplanting that they are entirely better than a three year old tree. The mania for big trees is first subsiding, and this is so much in the right direction. Plant an orchard of young trees, find plant some trees every year, and as the old trees die out, add new ones, and an abundance of fruit is almost a certainty throughout a lifetime. Plant those varieties that have been thoroughly tested and found to succeed in your locality, and go slow on those that are reported to do well a thousand miles away.— Jou>a ffomeiitcad.