JAN.] THE ORCHARD! 5t 



distance of large cities and towns, where sale can be obtained for the 

 fruit ; pear orchards are also extensive where people are in the habit 

 of making perry. 



A general orchard, however, composed of all the before mentioned 

 fruit-trees, should consist of a treble or more proportion of apple and 

 peach-trees, because they are considerably the most useful fruits, par- 

 ticularly the former, as they, exclusive of their use in distilling and 

 cider-making, may be continued for table use, in the different sorts, 

 the whole year round. 



But the misfortune is, that too frequently after orchards are 

 planted and fenced, they have seldom any more care bestowed upon 

 them. Boughs are suffered to hang dangling to the ground, their 

 heads are so loaded with wood as to be almost impervious to sun and 

 air, and they are left to be exhausted by moss and injured by cattle, 

 &c. 



By a redundancy of wood the roots are exhausted unprofitably, the 

 bearing wood is robbed of part of its sustenance, and the natural life 

 of the tree unnecessarily shortened, whilst the superfluous wood en- 

 dangers the tree by giving the winds an additional power over it, and 

 is injurious to the bearing wood, by retaining the damps and prevent- 

 ing a due circulation of air. 



The outer branches only are able to produce fruit properly ; every 

 inner and underling branch ought therefore to be removed. It is 

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

 so hard upon one another, with their twigs so intimately interwoven, 

 that a small bird can scarcely creep in among them. Trees thus 

 neglected acquire, from want of due ventilation, a stinted habit, and 

 the fruit becomes of a crude inferior quality. 



The trees are very often almost entirely subdued by moss, which 

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

 brance to the ground and a disgrace to the country. This evil may 

 easily be checked by scraping and rubbing off the moss at this season 

 of the year, with a rounded iron scraper, &c., when men have little 

 else to employ them, and only seek work in idle, expensive, and un- 

 profitable amusements. Draining the land, if too retentive of mois- 

 ture, will sometimes prevent or cure moss, or digging round the trees 

 on the approach of winter, or in spring, and bringing fresh mould, or 

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

 prepared and pulverized, and laid round them. Whatever contributes 

 to the health of the tree, will cure, or in some degree mitigate, this 

 and other diseases. 



These considerations ought to induce to an examination of your 

 standard apple, pear, plum and cherry-trees, &c., and where found 

 necessary, to thin their branches, scrape and rub off moss, cut off all 

 dead or irregularly placed limbs and branches, and also any luxuriant 

 unfruitful shoots, and such branches as appear to be in a decaying 

 or cankery state, all of which must be cut off dose to where they 

 were produced, or to some healthy leading branch or shoot ; for the 

 bark cannot grow over a stump, because there is no power to draw 

 the sap that way, for which reason always cut rather a little within 

 the wood. 



