

APPLE ORCHARDS IN ENGLAxND. r,r>i 



Veiiiiont, than was ever grown even in the south of England. We may congr.itulate 

 oui'selves then, that all that we need to raise the best apples in the world, any where in 

 the northern United States, is fortunately to be procured much more cheaply than a long 

 summer would be, if that were wanting. The other thing needful, juilging from the ex- 

 perience of England for a length of time past record, in addition to the usual requisites 

 for the cultivation of ordinary farm crops, is abundance of lime. This is experience; and 

 science confirms it with two very satisfactory reasons : first, that apple-tree wood is made 

 up in a large part of lime, which must be taken from the soil; and, second, that before 

 the apple-tree can turn other materials which it may collect from the soil and atmosphere 

 into fruit, it must be furnished with a considerable amount of some sort of alkali, which 

 requisite may be supplied by lime. 



There is but little else that we can learn from the English orchardists, except what to 

 avoid of their practices. The cider orchards, in general, are in every way miserably 

 managed, and the greater number of those that I saw in Herefordshire were, in almost 

 every respect, worse than the worst I ever saw in New England. The apple in England 

 is more subject to disease; and I should judge, from what was told me, that in a course 

 of years it suifered more from the attacks of insects and worms than in America. The 

 most deplorable disease is canker. This malady is attributed sometimes to a " cold, sour " 

 soil, sometimes to the want of some ingredients in the soil that are necessary to enable 

 the tree to carry on its healthy functions, sometimes to the general barrenness of the soil, 

 and sometimes to the " wearing out of the varieties." The precaution and remedies used 

 by gardeners (rarely by orchardists) for it, are generally those that would secure or re- 

 store a vigorous growth to a tree. The first of these is deepening and drying the soil, or 

 deep draining and trenching. The strongest and most fruitful orchards, it is well known, 

 are those which have been planted upon old hop-grounds, where the soil has been deeply 

 tilled and manured for a series of years, with substances that contain a considerable 

 amouut of phosphorous, such as woolen rags and bones. The roots of the hop also de- 

 scend far below the deepest tillage that can be given it; (in a calcareous gravelly subsoil 

 they have been traced ten feet from the surface;) a kind of subsoiling is thus prepared 

 for the apple by the decay of the hop roots. In some parts it is the custom to introduce the 

 hop culture upon the planting of a young orchard, the hops occupying the intervals until 

 the branches of the trees interfere with them. Nothing is more likely than this to ensure 

 a rapid and healthy growth of the trees. 



I recommend to those who intend planting an orchard, to have the ground for it in a 

 state of even, deep, fine tilth beforehand, and to plant in the intervals between apple or 

 pear trees some crop, which, like hops, will be likely to get for itself good feeding and 

 culture for several years. Peach trees, and dwarf apples (on Doucain stocks) and pears 

 (on quince stocks,) answer very well for this, and will make a handsome return some 

 years before the standard apples and pears come into bearing. 



With regard to the richness of the soil, however, it is said that " although high and 

 exciting modes of cultivation may flatter for a while by specious appearances, it is a 

 grave consideration whether they do not carry serious evils in their train." This caution 

 will remind the American horticulturist of Mr. Downing's recommendatioi\ to those 

 planting orchards on the over-deep and rich AVestern alluvial soils, to set the trees ui)on 

 hillocks. The danger apprehended is in both cases the same, that of too succulent growtli. 

 Mr. Williams, of Pitmaston, a distinguished English horticulturist, has found deficient 

 ripeness of the young wood to be the prime piedisposing cause of the canker. II 

 commends every year the shortening in of each shoot of the young unripened wood, 



