60 THE APPLE. 



As regards site, apple orchards flourish best, in southern and 

 middle portions of the country, on north slopes, and often even 

 on the steep north sides of hills, where the climate is hot and dry. 

 Farther north a southern or southeastern aspect is preferable, 

 to ripen the crop and the wood more perfectly. 



We may here remark that almost every district of the country 

 has one or more varieties which, having had its origin there, 

 seems also to flourish more perfectly in that than in any other 

 locality. Thus the Newtown pippin, and the Spitzenburgh are 

 the great apples of New- York ; the Baldwin, and the Roxbury 

 Russett, of Massachusetts ; the Bellflower and the Rambo, of 

 Pennsylvania and New-Jersey; and the Peck's Pleasant and the 

 Seek-no-further, of Connecticut ; and though these apples are 

 cultivated with greater or less success in other parts of the 

 country, yet nowhere is their flavour and productiveness so 

 perfect as in the best soils of their native districts. This will 

 account for the variety of opinions, respecting the comparative 

 merits of different fruits in different states and localities. 



PLANTING AND CULTIVATION OF ORCHARDS. With the excep- 

 tion of a few early and very choice sorts in the fruit garden, the 

 orchard is the place for this tree, and indeed, when we consider 

 the great value and usefulness of apples to the farmer, it is easy 

 to see that no farm is complete without a large and well selected 

 apple orchard. 



The distance at which the trees should be planted in an or- 

 chard, depends upon the mode in which they are to be treated. 

 When it is desired finally to cover and devote the whole ground 

 to the trees, thirty feet apart is the proper interval, but whore the 

 farmer wishes to keep the land between the trees in gram and 

 grass, fifty feet is not too great a distance in strong soils. Forty 

 feet apart, however, is the usual distance at which the trees are 

 planted in orchards. 



Before transplanting, the ground should be well prepared for 

 the trees, as we have insisted in a previous page, and vigo- 

 rous healthy young trees should be selected from the nurseries. 

 As there is a great difference in the natural growth, shape, and 

 size of the various sorts of apple trees, those of the same kinds 

 should be planted in the rows together, or near each other ; this 



by marl or meadow mud, will be found capable of producing very fine apple trees. 

 Good cultivation, and a system of high manuring, will always remunerate the pro- 

 prietor of an orchard, except it be planted on a quicksand or a cold clay; in such 

 Roils, no management can prevent an early decay. One of the most thrifty or- 

 chards I possess, was planted on a blowing sand, on which I carted three thousand 

 loads of mud on ten acres, at an expense of about twenty-five dollars per acre, ex- 

 clusive of much other manure ; on this land I have raised good wheat and clover. 

 Of five rows of the Winecap apple planted upon it eight years ago, on the summit 

 of a sandy knoll, not one has died out of near an hundred trees all abundant bear- 

 ers of large and fair apples. View of Fruit Trees, p. 31. 



