146 AGRICULTURE. 



best. When your grafts have acquired some inches 

 in length, it may be well to rub off all the buds 

 which have pushed below them on the stem, and 

 perhaps a few of those which have appeared above 

 them ;* and if the grafts themselves put out any 

 lateral shoots, spare them till the succeeding year, 

 when you are called to regraft such as have failed, 

 and to furnish props to those which are feeble, or 

 crooked, or ill-directed. 



Planting is the next operation in the process ; but, 

 as some preliminary measures, on which its suc- 

 cess will much depend, are yet untouched, we will 

 begin with these ; and, 



1st. Of the soil chosen for your intended orchard. 

 It is generally admitted that fruit-trees do well in a 

 warm, friable, moist, and deep soil ; that they suc- 

 ceed but indifferently in one that is cold and stiff, 

 and that they altogether fail in one either very dry 

 or very wet ; but a fact less known, though not less 

 established, is, that the subsoil has a powerful in- 

 fluence on the health and prosperity of plants. If 

 this be rock, or what is called hardpan, whatever 

 be the surface, the tree and its fruits are much de- 

 teriorated ; nor will the remedy, sometimes resort- 

 ed to, of cutting off the pivot or plunging-root, and 

 leaving the tree to subsist by those which are mere- 

 ly lateral, be sufficient. It may palliate, but it does 

 not cure. 



3d. Next to soil, exposition is most important. In 

 this climate northern and western expositions are 

 bad ; because the tree has least time for vegetation, 

 its juices are less concocted, and it is itself most 



* Many grafts are annually lost by removing the upper buds, 

 shoots, and limbs. It throws too much nourishment into the 

 graft, which dies of repletion. Having omitted in the text to 

 say anything of the different stems employed in grafting, we here 

 remark, what all amateurs in fruit-trees ought to know, that sci- 

 ons, whether of apple or pear trees, grafted on quince stocks, 

 give fairer fruit and much sooner than if grafted on apple or 

 pear stocks ; but the trees are short-lived. 



