60 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



promising situation, I shall introduce here an ex- 

 tract from a valuable paper, published in the Ag- 

 ricultural Repository, No. i. vol. 6, by John Wells, 

 esquire, of Dorchester. Mr. W. relates two in- 

 stances of cultivating apple trees successfully in 

 unfavourable situations. In the one, a low piece 

 of strong stony land was taken. " As it was rather 

 fiat, it was ploughed in strips or dug in spaces 

 about four feet square. As it was necessary to 

 plough a furrow between each row, the mode of 

 ploughing in strips was found the best, as by turn- 

 ing the furrow towards the tree, the land was bet- 

 ter drained. Besides raising the ground a little 

 from the surrounding soil, half a buck load of loam 

 was added, to raise the ground on which the tree 

 was set. After this was done, the strips or 

 squares, as the case might be, were appropriated 

 to the culture of potatoes and garden vegetables. 

 In a few places only, the trees failed from the in- 

 sufficiency of the drain. But by opening the drain, 

 and raising the ground by half a buck load of loam, 

 I found, o?i setting out a new tree, it flourished 

 equally with the rest. This orchard, now in eight 

 years, is a most valuable one, and most of the trees 

 would give half a barrel of apples. From this and 

 other circumstances which have fallen within my 

 observation, it appears that low land, if strong soil, 

 an^ well drained, will give a fine orchard, and pro- 

 "bably sooner than any other. 9 ' 



The next effort was made under totally opposite 

 circumstances. " The object was to have an or- 

 chard on a particular spot, where the soil was thin 

 and lighty upon a plain or flat The holes were 

 dutr four feet over. The two upper strata of 

 black and yellow loam, were placed aside the tree. 

 After this, about ten inches in depth of the gravel- 

 ly, or poorer earth, was taken out aod carted oft] 

 and a horse cart load of stones tipset into the 

 kole ; upon these, a part of the upper stratum, or 



