ORC 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



ORC 



201 



trees should be in lines, for the convenience of ploughing ; 

 in close orchards, they should be set in the quincunx manner. 

 The time of planting is October and November, or February, 

 March, and April. Where the soil is dry and light, autumn 

 is preferable ; but in a cold wet situation and tenacious soil, 

 the spring months are best. The leader should now be short- 

 ened, and the smaller side-boughs be taken off, .leaving a 

 proper choice of the larger side-boughs entire and untouched, 

 to draw up the sap, and to furnish wood proper for grafting. 

 The common method of planting is to dig a hole, wide 

 enough to receive the roots, which being placed within it, the 

 mould is returned upon them, in the order in which it came 

 out, carefully replacing the sods on the surface, that no graz- 

 ing ground may be lost. A better method is this : the ground 

 being set out with stakes, driven in at the centres of the in- 

 tended holes, describe a circle, five or six feet in diameter, 

 round each stake ; if the ground be in grass, remove the 

 sward in shallow spits, placing it on one side of the hole ; 

 put the best of the loose mould by itself on another side, 

 and the dead earth in a third heap : where the subsoil is cold 

 and retentive, the holes should not be made much deeper 

 than the cultivated soil ; in a dry light soil, the holes should 

 be made deeper, both to obtain a degree of coolness and 

 moisture, and to establish the plants firmly in the ground. 

 In soils of a middle quality, the hole should be of such a 

 depth, that when the sods are thrown to the bottom of it, 

 the plant will stand at the same depth in the orchard as it 

 did in the nursery. The holes ought to be made previous 

 to the day of planting; and if the ground and weather be 

 dry, the holes should have two or three pails full of water 

 thrown into each, the evening before. In planting, the sods 

 should be thrown to the bottom of the hole, chopt with the 

 epade, and covered with some of the finest of the mould : if 

 with this the bottom be not raised high enough for the plant, 

 return some of the worst mould before the sods are put in. 

 Upon the fine mould spread the lowest tier of roots, drawing 

 them out horizontally with all their fibres, pressing them 

 evenly into the soil, and covering them by hand with some 

 of the finest of the mould ; one person steadying the plant, 

 another adjusting and bedding the roots, and a third supply- 

 : ng the mould ; which being raised high enough to receive 

 mother tier of roots, they are to be spread and bedded like 

 the former : thus proceeding till the roots are all bedded 

 freely, yet firmly, among the best of the soil. When they 

 are covered some depth, press the earth in well with the foot, 

 and. raise the remainder into a hillock round the stem, to 

 afford coolness, moisture, and stability to the plant. It is a 

 common fault to plant fruit-trees too deeply in the ground ; 

 though, provided they can withstand the violence of the wind, 

 they can scarcely be planted too near the surface. Young 

 trees are frequently planted in hop grounds, and therefore 

 want no protection ; the land not being converted either into 

 arable or pasture, till the trees are out of the reach of cattle : 

 but when they are planted in pasture land, or open fields, 

 tall thorns, fastened by withes, are commonly placed round 

 them ; this however is a slender guard, and the thorns are 

 apt to chafe the stem of the tree. The most effectual, but 

 expensive guard, is composed of four posts put down in a 

 square, with rails mortised into them ; and to be effectual, 

 the posts should be put at such a distance and height, anc 

 the rails so close, that cattle may not be able to injure the 

 tree : the posts also should be set slanting outwards, that the 

 area of the fence may be widest at top. Some persons set 

 only three posts in a triangle, connected by rails, in the same 

 way as four ; in both cases, care should be taken that the 

 lower be sufficiently close, to prevent sheep from creeping 



through, for, especially when snow is on the ground, they will 

 be sure to bark the young trees. The plantation will require 

 copious watering the first summer, if the season should 

 irove dry: the surface over the roots should be kept from 

 ;rass and weeds, and in a loose pulverized state, so as to 

 allow the roots to spread horizontally on every side. In 

 Herefordshire, the soil of orchards is generally kept under 

 ;illage ; in Gloucestershire, in grass : either mode has its dis- 

 advantages. Fruit-trees when fully grown, especially if they 

 se of a spreading growth, and are suffered to form drooping 

 Dranches, are very injurious to arable crops, at least in our 

 moist climate; their roots, their drip, and their shadows, are 

 destructive, not to corn only, but to clover and turnips : they 

 also impede the circulation of the air, as has been before 

 noticed, and are in the way of the plough-teams. It is how- 

 ever certain that tillage is favourable to the growth of young 

 trees ; whereas in grass grounds, their progress is compara- 

 tively slow, for want of the earth being stirred about their roots, 

 and through the injuries they receive from cattle when grazing. 

 Hence, where circumstances will allow, it is best to plant 

 fruit-trees upon a newly broken-up sward, to keep the soil 

 under a state of arable management until the trees be well 

 grown; then to lay it down to grass, and let it so remain 

 until the trees be removed, and their roots decayed, when 

 it will again require a course of arable management. After 

 orchard trees are planted and fenced, they have seldom any 

 more care bestowed upon them; boughs are suffered to hang 

 dangling to the ground, their heads so loaded with wood as 

 to be impervious to the sun and air, and they are left to be 

 exhausted by the moss and misletoe. By this redundancy 

 of wood, the roots are unprofitably exhausted; the bearing, 

 wood is robbed of a part of its sustenance, and the natural 

 life of the tree unnecessarily shortened; the outer surface 

 only is able to mature fruit properly ; every inner and under- 

 ling branch ought therefore to be removed. It is common 

 to see fruit-trees with two or three tiers of boughs pressing 

 hard upon one another, with their twigs so intimately inter- 

 woven, that a small bird can hardly creep in among them. 

 Trees thus neglected, acquire, from want of due ventilation, 

 a stinted habit, and their fruit becomes of a crude and inferior 

 quality. Misletoe is a great enemy to Apple orchards, and 

 is frequently permitted to be very injurious to them : the 

 ordinary method of clearing trees from it, is to pull it out 

 with hooks in frosty weather, when being brittle it breaks off 

 from the branches. Sheep are as fond of it as they are of Ivy ; 

 but although a labourer could clear fifty or sixty trees 

 in one day, the Herefordshire orchards are generally injured, 

 and often exhausted, by this parasite. The trees are also 

 very often entirely siibdued by Moss, which kills many trees, 

 and injures others so much, that they are only an incum- 

 brance to the ground, and a disgrace to the country : this 

 evil may be easily checked, and' in great measure avoided. 

 In Kent, there are men who make it their business to clean 

 orchard trees from Moss, at a certain price by the tree, or by 

 the whole. Draining the land, if two retentive of moisture, 

 will sometimes prevent or cure Moss ; or digging round the 

 trees in winter, and bringing fresh mould, or the scouring of 

 ponds and roads, or the rubbish of old walls well prepared 

 and pulverized, and laid round the trees ; for whatever pro- 

 motes the health of the tree, will in some degree mitigate these 

 and other diseases. When fruit-trees are hidebound, they 

 are scored, by cutting the bark with the point of a knife, from 

 the top to the bottom of the stem. Spring frosts are nu 

 enemy against which it is very difficult to guard orchard 

 trees: dry frosts are observed only to operate in keeping thi' 

 blossoms back; but wet frosts after rain, or a foggy air, a:;-l 



