88 ORCHARDS. 



trees become large and spreading, the "whole of the ground 

 should be appropriated to the use of the trees. 



The advantage of frequently breaking the crust and stir- 

 ring the soil, especially under the trees, is of great benefit, 

 as it allows the fertilizing particles of rain, air, dew, snow, &c., 

 more easily to penetrate into the earth, and produce benefi- 

 cial effects on the roots — such cultivation is likewise one of the 

 most effectual means of preserving them in a sound and heal- 

 thy state, and is most fatal to depredating insects. If manure 

 is freely given between the trees, the soil will be thus so 

 much imprvovd as to serve for raising the most abundant crops 

 of vegetable roots: particularly, turnips and j^otatoes. The 

 former are peculiarly calculated for this purpose ; as they 

 do not exhaust the soil in any degree equal to the impover- 

 ishing effects of the latter. In fact, in order to secure the 

 very best results, the groivn up orchard also should be as 

 well manured, and as highly cultivated as a garden, and the 

 soil kept loose and light all tlte time, no other crops being 

 allowed among the trees. 



A correspondent some years ago, under the signature T., 

 in the Albany Cultivator^ gives the following very valuable 

 advice in regard to the culture and mana<iement of fruit trees. 



'' Nothing has operated more to check improvement, than 

 the neglect of young trees after they are once set out. The 

 man who plants fifty peach trees into meadow ground, and 

 loses one half by being smothered with the growth of 

 the grass, and the other half the following Winter, by 

 the gnawings of meadow mice, will not be long in becom- 

 ing disheartened in fruit culture. He who sets out a hundred 

 apple trees in grass land, or in ground devoted to the cul- 

 tivation of wheat and oats, where tripple the time necessarily 

 required, elapses before the trees bear, satisfies himself and 

 his neighbors that he who plants young trees only plants for 

 posterity. No conclusion can be more erroneous, no practice 

 more pernicious to horticultural improvement. "When the 

 best management is given — and the best is incomparably the 

 cheapest and most economical — young trees, no larger than 

 a cari*iage whip, may be brought into a good bearing state, in 



