It has been our custom on former occasions to enlarge and revise our John Filch, in 1788. To hit steamboat Perseverance.

General Catalogue by a discussion and vote on each variety. Great advantages have already resulted to the country and the world from the catalogue of this Society, which classifies our fruits; registers those suited to general cultivation; those adapted to particular localities; those which promise well; and those that are pronounced unworthy of cultivation.

It will be remembered that, at the last biennial session, the Chairman of the General Fruit Committee recommended the appointment of local committees in each State and Territory, charged with the duty of producing and submitting to a special committee a list of the 'fruits cultivated in their respective localities.

From these local catalogues, embodying the ripest experience of the best cultivators in all parts of the country, it will be easy for the society, at its next session, to transfer fruits to the corresponding department of the Society's General Catalogue.

I therefore respectfully recommend,

First, That no revision of that portion of our catalogue embracing fruits for general cultivation be attempted at this meeting.

Secondly, That local committees be appointed, each of which shall be charged with the doty of preparing a catalogue of the fruits in its own locality, on the same general plan as the Society's Catalogue.

Thirdly, That a special committee be appointed at this time, to whom these various local committees shall make their report during the year 1861.

Fourthly, That the Special Committee be charged with the duty of compiling, from these local catalogues, and from the present catalogue of our Society, full lists of all the fruits therein named, properly classified and arranged, with due regard to nomenclature and terminology, and shall submit the same at the next biennial session for its consideratian and action. This labor, well performed, will redound to the honor of American Pomology.

These recommendations are not intended to preclude a discussion of the merits or demerits of any variety now on our catalogue. On the contrary, they call for a full and free expression of opinions in respect to any department of the same, as this may aid the labors of the several committees. Neither are they intended to preclude the addition of varieties to the list which promise well.

If this association had rendered no other service except to give to the world its present catalogue of fruits, it would have fulfilled an important mission: but it has done more; it has encouraged and originated many kindred associations, has brought together experienced cultivators, and made them teachers of each other.

By this action and reaction of mind on mind, many of the first principles of judicious cultivation are now fully settled and well understood. Among these are the following, to which I will now only briefly allude, as they have been more fully considered in former addresses:

1. Culture Of Trees

The healthful development of fruit-trees, as of other living substances, depends on the regular reception of a certain quantity of appropriate food. This food, whether derived from the earth, air, water, or other natural elements, is conveyed through the medium of the atmosphere and the soil. While we have only an indirect and imperfect control of the atmosphere and other meteorological agents, the Great Arbiter of Nature has committed the soil directly to our care and treatment.

2. To this I may add the general sentiment in favor of thorough and perfect drainage, beneficial to all cultivators, but indispensable to the fruit-grower.

3. Not less uniform is the experience of the salutary effects of a proper preparation of the soil for fruit-trees, both in the nursery and in the orchard.

These principles are settled in'the minds of all intelligent fruit-growers; but they need to be often promulgated and enforced. It should be equally well understood that success depends upon the adaptation of the habits of the tree to the constituents of the soil, the location, and aspect or exposure. A disregard of this principle, and the fickleness of seasons, are among the most common causes of failure, not only among inexperienced cultivators, but among professed nomologists.

More attention should be given not only to the location, but especially the aspect of trees. A common error is to disregard the time of ripening. We plant our early fruits in the warmest and most genial locations. These should be assigned to our latest varieties. For instance, we. at the north, have too often placed our late fall and winter pears, like Easter Beurrte, or Beurre' d'Aremberg, in northern aspects and exposed positions, where they are liable to injury by the gales and frosts of autumn, whereas we should have given them a southern aspect, and our moot fertile soils, to bring them to perfection. The most favorable locations are not so indispensable to our summer fruits, which mature early under the more direct rays of the sun, and in a much higher temperature. This rule may require modification and even reversion to adapt it to the south or south-west portion of our country. And here I can not refrain from expressing the earnest hope that our local catalogues may be framed with a wise reference to this principle, and that the day may not be distant when the Society's Catalogue shall designate the particular locality, aspect, and soil, adapted to each variety of fruit.

But however important these considerations may be, the subsequent cultivation of trees must receive a passing notice, even at the risk of repeating some opinions of myself and others, which are already before the public.

The sentiments contained in the communication of Mr. J. J. Thomas, at our last session, against the growth of any other crop in orchards, especially against relying upon small circles dug around trees in grass ground, as a method of culture, deserves to be held in perpetual remembrance. Equally injurious, in my own opinion, is the habit of deep digging or plowing among fruit-trees, thereby cutting off the roots, and destroying the fibrous feeders, which frequently extend beyond the sweep of the branches. However necessary the practice may be of cutting off roots in old orchards, in the process of renovation, it should be carefully avoided in grounds properly prepared, and where the trees are in a healthy or bearing condition. From experiment and observation, I am persuaded that working the soil among fruit-trees, to the depth of more than three or four inches, should be carefully avoided. The surface should only be worked with a hoe, or scarifier, for the purpose of stirring the soil, and keeping out the weeds. Thus we avail ourselves of the advantages of what, in farming, is called flat-culture, at present so popular. For the same reason, manure should not be dug in to any considerable depth, and some of our wisest cultivators now recommend its application on the surface.

So favorably impressed with this practice is the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, that it has ordered a series of experiments with cereal grains and other products in the application of manures on the surface as compared with specified depths beneath it.

The practice of surface manuring is no novelty of our day. An eminent cultivator of fruits, nearly two hundred years ago, said, " Manures should be applied to fruit-trees in the autumn upon the surface, that the rains, snow, and frosts may convey the elements of fertility to the roots;" and "that, by this method, one load will do more good than two used in the common way of trenching in to the depth of one foot." Other distinguished cultivators and scientific gentlemen recommend the same practice. Hence we are of opioion that our orchards and gardens should be manured in the autumn, and on the surface, so that the manures may be thoroughly decomposed, made soluble during the fall and winter, and suitable for the nourishment of the tree early in the spring.

In the history of this art, as of most others, it is wonderful how human opinions change. What were once considered as fundamental, are now rejected as unphilosophical or injurious, and those once rejected are now adopted as wise maxims. The doctrine has prevailed, from the time of Columella and Varro, that manures should not be exposed to the air, but should be incorporated with the soil as soon as laid out; whereas, we have now the opinion of cultivators and chemists in favor of exposure to the air, and other external agents of decomposition, and that it is not a source of nutrition to the plant until it 10 thoroughly decomposed. This opinion is certainly corroborated by the practice of skilful gardeners in all past time, who will never use green manure in the potting or cultivation of plants, and only that which has become old and fine.