Ch.XXXI.] ORCHARDS— SEED SPECIES. 361 



flat chisel, having a sharp edge on one of its sides, with a liook on the 

 other, and fixed into a handle of six feet or more in lengtli. The cut 

 should be made with as little slant as possible, so as to expose the least 

 portion of surface, and leave substance enough about the wound *. 



SEED SPECIES. 



The nursery -plants raised from seed are grown by spreading tlie pulp, 

 or "cheese," fresh from the cider press, upon a piece of prepared garden 

 ground, and then mixing it with the mould by means of a rake or a light 

 harrow. In the progress of the ensuing growth of the young plants, care 

 should be taken to select all such as produce the largest and most luxuriant 

 leaves, as it is from that character that the best expectations are formed of 

 procuring the most valuable fruit ; the rejected plants being drawn out 

 from time to time, and those which are preserved being left to discover 

 their specific qualities. This may generally be ascertained by the end of 

 the sixth year from the sowing of the pips, and they may then be planted 

 out. Nurserymen, however, commonly remove them out about four feet 

 apart, after standing two years in the seed-beds, and, at five years from 

 the seed, these stocks are grafted. Great pains are then bestowed in 

 training the young top ; which is done by cutting oft" the shoot chin-high, 

 and afterwards pruning the top branches for three or four years within "six 

 or eight inches of the stem. This strengthens the trunk and roots and 

 gives considerable security to the tree when removed to the orchard, which 

 does not usually take place until three or four years from the time of being 

 planted. The ground should, however, be in fine order ; and if the surface 

 be strewed thick over with furze, which is suffered to rot there, it will be 

 found an excellent manure for apple-trees f. 



The opinion of the best-informed planters of the old school is, that the 

 seeds of the old fruits should be sown, and the most strong and healthy 

 plants selected for the purposes of cultivation. A treatise on the subject 

 was indeed publislied by one Lawson so long ago as tlie year 1626, in 

 which he states that " the best way to plant an orchard is to turn the 

 ground with a spade in February, and to set from February to May some 

 kernels of the best and soundest apples and pears, a finger-deep, and at a 

 foot distance ; leaving the likeliest plants only in the natural place, remov- 

 ing the others as time and occasion shall require :" a plan which is still 

 very generally followed, and which may be persevered in without disad- 

 vantage, when the parent stock is still young and healthy. It, indeed, 

 cannot be reasonably doubted that seeds chosen with a proper degree of 

 care may be successfully propagated during a certain period, but it is also 

 certain that in process of time they decay at the same moment, as sup- 

 posed, as that of the tree from which they were taken. Not onlv, indeed, 

 is this apparent in the gradual disappearance of the " Golden-pippin,'' and 

 some other valued species, but the fact is confirmed in a recent Memoir 

 on the subject by the President of the Horticultural Society, in which he 

 states, " that certain varieties of some fruits which have been long culti- 

 vated, cannot now be made to grow in the same soils and under the same 

 mode of management, which was a century ago perfectly successful, is placed 

 beyond the reach of controversy. Every ex])eriment which seemed to 

 aft'ord the slightest prospect of success was tried bv myself and others to 

 propagate the old varieties of apple and pear, which formerly constituted 



* Survey of Herefordshire, p. 83. 

 t Survey of Cornwall, p. 95, 



