SFSTEMS OF CULTURE ORCHARDING APPLES. 273 



total 8 8s. 9d. ; highest 75 trees at 2s. = 7 10s., planting and staking 75 trees at Is. 

 = 3 15s., total 11 5s. The lowest price is for small trees and 3-feet holes ; medium 

 for good trees and 4|-feet holes, and the highest for strong picked trees, 6-feet diameter 

 holes, and double staking. Draining, subsoiling, and manuring costs about 10 per 

 acre, and the total expense of forming an apple-orchard, on the most approved agri- 

 cultural principles, ranges from 15 to 21 per acre. 



In some cases the orchard is formed of apple and plum trees at equal distances 

 apart 17 feet = 150 trees per acre; and the cost of manuring, ploughing, subsoiling, 

 harrowing, trees, planting and staking amounts to 21 per acre. The trees are set in 

 squares, apples and plums alternately in the row, and in the alternate rows the plums 

 are placed opposite the apples in the adjoining rows. By this plan the returns are 

 increased during the early part of the bearing period, the ground being cultivated for 

 the first five years, then laid down in grass, and at fourteen years from planting the 

 produce of the whole has realised 40 per acre. The plums are ultimately removed and 

 the apple trees left 34 feet apart not too great distance for strong-growing kinds, such 

 as the Blenheim Orange, Newton "Wonder, and Bramley's Seedling in good deep soils. 

 Large trees at the distance named bear heavily at thirty to forty-five years from 

 planting, sometimes producing 10 bushels of good fruit per tree = 370 bushels per 

 acre, and have fetched 3s. 6d. per bushel, packed in buyers' baskets and put on rails 

 = 64 15s. A tree at Faversham, in Kent, produced 60 bushels of apples in 1893. 



Standard apple trees on grass produce little fruit until the fifth season, and, as a 

 rule, do not prove remunerative before the seventh year. Blenheim Orange requires 

 ten to twelve years to arrive at profitable bearing. The direct loss of herbage is recouped 

 by the fruit produced up to the seventh year, and the value of the grass about equals 

 the rent of the land during the seven years. The cost of pruning, protecting the 

 stems, adjusting the ties, and sticky banding, amounts to about 1 10s. a year = 10 10s. 

 an acre; this, added to the cost of forming an apple-orchard of 75 trees, 11 11s., 

 amounts to 22 Is., the total outlay up to the commencement of the remunerative 

 returns. 



The value of the crop in the eighth year, season being favourable, is 2s. 6d. per 

 tree = 9 7s. 6d. ; tenth year, 5s. = 18 15s. ; and in the fourteenth year, 7s. 6d. to 10s. 

 = 28 2s. 6d. to 37 10s. per acre. If the site, soil, and varieties have been well 

 chosen, and the cultivation good, the orchard will consist of 75 thriving trees per 

 acre, each producing, in the fifteenth year from planting, 2 bushels of good fruit == 



VOL. III. N S 





