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OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



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203 



that has a tendency to cross the tree, or run inwards : a little 

 attention may also be paid to the beauty of the head, leaving 

 all the branches as nearly equidistant as possible. If then 

 there be any remaining blotches, open or score them with a 

 knife, and, where the bark is ragged from any laceration, 

 pare it gently down till you come to the live wood, touching- 

 over each with the medicated tar. After this, rub the Moss 

 clean off, and score the trees ; in doing which, take care not 

 to cut through the inner or white rind which joins the bark 

 to the wood. When trees are much thinned, they are sub- 

 ject to throw out a great quantity of young shoots in the 

 spring ; these should be rubbed off, and not cut, for cutting 

 increases the number. The medicated tar is composed of 

 half an ounce of corrosive sublimate, reduced to fine powder 

 by beating it with a wooden hammer, and then put into a 

 three-pint earthen pipkin, with about a glassful of gin or 

 other spirit, stirred well together, and the sublimate thus 

 dissolved. The pipkin must then be filled by degrees thus 

 vegetable or common tar, and constantly stirred till the mix- 

 ture is intimately blended. This quantity will be sufficient 

 for two hundred trees. Being of a very poisonous nature, it 

 should not be suffered to lie about the house. The sublimate 

 dissolves better, when united with the same quantity of spirit 

 of hartshorn or sal ammoniac. This mixture being apt to 

 run, consistency may be given it by mixing pounded chalk 

 or whiting. On Planting Orchard Trees, &c. If possible, 

 choose the trees the year before they are to be planted, and 

 see that they are properly pruned in the nursery, by taking off 

 close all rambling and unsightly branches, leaving only three 

 or four good leading shoots: by this forecast, the trees will 

 not require pruning for some time ; and it will greatly acce- 

 lerate their growth, that they have no wounds to be healed 

 in the year of their being transplanted. Take care that your 

 trees be young ; and plant no galled, fretted, or cankered 

 plants. When they are taken up, retain the roots as long 

 as is convenient, which will dispose them to run horizontally, 

 from which, as they are more under the influence of the sun, 

 the sap becomes better concocted, and produces the fairest and 

 sweetest fruit. An orchard should be screened on the east, 

 north, and west sides, and open to the south. The natural 

 growth of the different fruit should be 'attended to in the 

 disposition of the trees. One row of the tallest strongest 

 growers should be planted on the three cold sides, and that 

 row should be planted twice as thick as any other; then 

 one row more of the next free-growers, parallel to the last 

 rows ; and so on, gradually declining in size till you come to 

 the centre. The intention here is to raise shelter ; and it 

 would be advisable, on the outside of these outer rows, to 

 run a shaw or belt of underwood, more than a pole wide, of 

 four or six rows of the freest-growing trees which the country 

 produces ; the wood of which will more than pay the expense. 

 Half the trees should be cut down in about fourteen years, 

 to become stools, and the other half at a proper distance of 

 time ; so that the belt, for the whole duration of the orchard, 

 shall be of young wood, and feathering down to the bottom. 

 Nothing can be better for this purpose than the Sweet Ches- 

 nut, where the soil suits it. The Hawthorn likewise, properly 

 trained, has awonderfully good effect in blunting or absorbing 

 the baneful quality attendant upon the blighting air. Before 

 the ground be laid out, be careful to secure the little risings 

 or inflections, to catch the sun, and exclude the cold. Firs 

 may be happily introduced at a distance for shelter : all 

 together might be so disposed as at the same time to protect 

 the fruit, and heighten the appearance of the grounds. Such 

 an orchard may often bear a crop when the neighbourhood 

 in general fails ; and everv one knows the value of a good 

 83. 



crop in a failing year. The plantations, belt, and larger 

 trees, will keep off the blighting winds; and the orchard 

 being open in the middle and to the south, the stagnant 

 vapours which stint the fruit in the spring will be dissipated, 

 and each tree will enjoy the influence of the sun and air. 

 Besides, the ground being open in the middle, the herbage 

 will be the more valuable. In new plantations, avoid planting 

 too deep or too thick. Sunshine will bring sweet fruits ; 

 while shade, and planting the trees too deeply in the earth, 

 will place the roots beyond the influence of genial warmth, 

 and produce crude acid juices. When the top of a tree 

 separates by the weight of its branches, an iron bolt may be 

 introduced, by boring a hole through the upper part of the 

 cleft with an half-inch anger ; first cutting the bark and some 

 of the wood with ajchisel, so as the head at one end, and 

 the nut and screw at the other, may be hid under the bark, 

 which will soon grow over the iron, if often touched over with 

 the medicated tar. There is not any culture we are acquainted 

 with equal to Hops, for raising an orchard; and when the 

 proper time for grubbing up the Hops comes, the trees may 

 be secured, and the land turned to grazing. It would be 

 better not to take up the Hops all at once, and to crop the 

 vacant land for two or thr.ee years with Potatoes. Thus the 

 trees would continue in better health by taking away the 

 shelter gradually. Let the agriculture be what it may, the 

 land should never be ploughed or dug deep directly over 

 the roots of a newly planted fruit-tree; for as the roots collect 

 the best sap from their extreme points, if those points be 

 broken off from the upper side of the roots, the tree is com- 

 pelled to subsist on nurture drawn from the under strata, 

 and consequently the sap will be of a worse quality. Where 

 hogs and poultry are constantly running over the ground, the 

 trees seldom fail of a crop, which is the best proof that 

 manure is necessary. Any manure will suit an orchard ; but 

 the sweepings of cow-houses, hog-yards, slaughter-houses, 

 dog-kennels, emptying of drains, &c. are more disposed to 

 facilitate the growth and promote the health of fruit trees, 

 than manure from the stable. Watering in dry weather tends 

 much to keep the trees in health, and to secure their bearing 

 by swelling the buds for the' next year's crop ; for when the 

 buds are strong at first coming out, they are not so liable to 

 blight. Those sorts of fruit which are known to thrive best 

 in the neighbourhood, should in general be preferred : and 

 care should be taken not to suffer trees to bear much fruit 

 whilst young. Where trees are much overrun with Moss, 

 a strong man, with a good birch broom, in a wet day, 

 would do great execution. On young trees, the best method 

 of destroying Moss, is to rub all the branches, spring and 

 autumn, with a hard scrubbing-brush and soap-suds, as a 

 groom does a horse's legs. Canker in a great measure arises 

 from animalcules ; and where the only object is to remove 

 this disease, hog's lard is preferable to tar ; but where wet 

 is to be guarded against, tar is better. If the soil of an 

 orchard be a strong clay, chalk, or a cold sharp gravel, 

 plant the trees above ground, raising over them a little mound 

 of good fresh mould, as large as an extensive ant-hill, sowing 

 the top with White Dutch Clover. It is recommended that 

 the rows of trees should not stand north and south, but a 

 point of the compass towards the east ; as the sun will then 

 shine up the rows soon after ten o'clock, which in the spring 

 will serve to dissipate the vapours collected in the night, 

 and thus prevent the fruit from being stinted in the early 

 stages of its growth. On Root Pruning. When a tree has 

 stood so long that -the leading roots have entered into the 

 under strata, they are apt to draw a crude fluid, which the 

 organs of more delicate fruit-trees cannot convert into such 

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