THE ORCHARD. 75 



valuable ; while in the dessert, when in fine condition, they are 

 especial favourites. Under the trees, and for six feet on each 

 side, the impoverished under soil may be at once sown with 

 grass seeds, to be cut for packing, or to be consumed green. 

 Grass under trees is a great protection to fruit that fall, as 

 they take much less damage than they would from the hard 

 ground, or the earth and stones where dug up ; and the prin- 

 cipal thing to attend to is, the frequent cutting of the grass, 

 to prevent it from seeding, and the seeds from blowing over 

 the dug parts. The devotion of the whole enclosure to orchard 

 purposes will be found advantageous. Even the gooseberries, 

 currants, and raspberries, usually grown in the kitchen-garden, 

 are better grown here ; and if you will but give room enough 

 to the strawberries to prevent them covering the surface, they 

 will do well on the warm borders, mthout doing much harm 

 to the roots of the wall-trees. 



If the orchard were laid out and planted in this way, the 

 trees would be in rows upon grass slips one rod wide ; 

 the gooseberries, currants, and raspberries would be on slips 

 one rod wide between the trees, and a border all round may 

 be turned to some accoimt at all times. 



JSText to having an orchard as we like, we must have it as 

 we can get it ; and in very many cases the orchard -will be 

 confined to standard trees, and the boundaries mere hedges 

 and ditches, instead of walls ; in which case the fruit -^oLl be 

 confined to the more hardy kinds. Green-gages will do on 

 standards, also all the kinds of plums and cherries ; but it is 

 a waste of time, money, and patience, to try peaches, apricots, 

 and nectarines, on standard trees ; they will not ripen one 

 season in ten, and, therefore, only lead to disappointment 

 The best chance we have of ripening such fruit without walls, 

 is, to grow the trees very dwarf on espahers, so that the earth 

 shall perform some of the part which the wall does — that is, 

 reflect the heat a Httle ; but it is all mere make-sliift, and it 

 is as well to do \\ithout the fruit always, as to be disappointed 

 even twice out of three seasons, wliicli we assuredly should bo 

 in this country. Again, there are some who would be at the 

 expense of building a wall on the warm side of a plot of 

 ground destined for an orchard, who would not think the use 

 of a wall on the cold side any fair compensation for the cost ; 

 and there may be some reason in this ; because, however we 

 may use a north-east aspect for certain fruits that "will stand 



