FRUIT MANAGEMENT. 37 



where the trees present this aspect. The only injuries they occasion 

 the trees is by preventing the access of hght and air to the 

 branches, besides harbouring the numerous leaf eating and other 

 insects, whose presence is not desirable. Drainage, pruning and 

 feeding the trees, are the best preventive means. When the 

 Mosses and Lichens exist on the trees of high value, it will 

 perhaps repay the trouble to scrape them off and wash the boughs 

 with a strong solution of soft soap, or with lime water, to check 

 their fresh growth. 



Other Tree Enemies. — All orchard writers dwell at consider- 

 able length on many Orchard enemies, such as Cattle, Hares, 

 Coneys, Moles, Water-rats, Birds, Snails, Caterpillars, Pismires 

 and Ants. These enemies must be met, as they occur, by the 

 practical ingenuity of the Orchardist. The most real are Hares and 

 Rabbits, which in severe weather, when the ground is covered by 

 snow, and other food is scarce, will sometimes destroy an 

 orchard by barking the young trees. In addition to the gun, the 

 best remedy is the lime and sulphur wash, very freely applied. 

 Furze if at hand may be tied round the tree stems ; but wire 

 netting is the only effectual remedy, when the animals abound and 

 their need for food is pressing. The use of grease, tar, or petroleum, 

 so commonly recommended, are better avoided, since they are apt 

 themselves to be injurious to the young trees. 



in. FRUIT MANAGEMENT. 



The customs which prevailed in the Orchard two hundred years 

 since are very different from those followed at the present time. 

 The early Ciderists divided their fruit into three classes. The first 

 consisted of such Apples as would make a summer cider for 

 immediate drinking ; as the Codlings ; Jenettings ; Spice Apple ; 

 Summer Queening ; and all the early summer fruits. The second 

 class consisted of those that made the best, and richest, and longest 

 keeping cider, and embraced all the established varieties of cider 

 fruits, as Gennet Moyle ; Redstreak ; Bromsberrow Crab ; Golden 



