CHAPTER V. 



SOIL, MANURES, SITUATION, AND ENCLOSURES. 



THE soil for fruit-trees, as well as for farm crops, should be of good 

 quality. Whatever will produce a vigorous growth of corn and 

 potatoes, will in general be the best for fruit-trees. Sterile soil is 

 unfavorable for both ; but doubly so for the latter ; for while it only 

 lessens in quantity the growth of farm crops, it lessens the quantity 

 and greatly injures the quality of fruit. 



Good soils vary in many particulars ; but as a general rule, one 

 which is dry, firm, mellow, and fertile, is well suited to this purpose. 

 It should be deep, to allow the extension of the roots ; dry, or else 

 well drained, to prevent injury from stagnant water below the sur- 

 face ; firm, and not peaty or spongy, to preclude injury or destruction 

 from frost. 



Few soils exist in this country which would not be much bene- 

 fited, for all decidedly hardy fruits, as the apple and pear, by enrich- 

 ing. Shallow soils should be loosened deeply by heavy furrows ; or 

 if the whole surface cannot be thus treated, a strip of ground eight 

 feet wide, where the row of trees is to stand, should be rendered in 

 this way deep and fertile for their growth. Manure, if applied, 

 should be thoroughly intermixed with the soil by repeated harrow- 

 ings. An admirable method of deepening soils for the free admis- 

 sion of the fine fibrous roots, is first, to loosen it as deeply as prac- 

 ticable with the subsoil-plough ; and then to trench-plough this 

 deeply loosened bed for the intermixture of manure. The previous 

 subsoiling admits the trench-plough to a greater depth than could be 

 attained without its aid. The only trees which will not bear a high 

 fertility, are those brought originally from warmer countries, and 

 liable to suffer from the frost of winter, as the peach, nectarine, and 

 apricot ; for they are stimulated to grow too late in the season, and 

 frost strikes them when the wood is immature. It however happens, 

 in the ordinary practice of the country, that where one peach or apri- 



