SHELTER SITUATION. 351 



west wind is not commonly a desirable visitant, par- 

 ticularly when the orchard is a few miles distant from 

 the sea, that wind being often highly impregnated 

 with saline particles which are peculiarly injurious 

 to vegetation ; and therefore orchards so situated, 

 ought, if possible, to be sheltered by high trees 

 planted on their borders, so as to obstruct the cur- 

 rent of such air, always preventing, however, such 

 trees from extending their branches over the apple 

 trees. 



Of the mischievous tendency of north, north-east, 

 and east winds to orchards generally, there can be 

 no doubt ; and, therefore, similar shelter by trees, 

 as in the former case, is always desirable. We may 

 add too, that north, north-east, and east situations 

 on hills, or the sides of hills, ought, for an orchard, 

 to be generally avoided ; indeed we should say that 

 all hilly situations, to whatever point of the compass 

 directed, for orchards, should also be avoided; 

 nevertheless, gentle slopes at the foot of hills, if of a 

 good depth of soil, are usually esteemed favourable 

 situations ; but rich bottoms, with a good depth of 

 dark soil, and a sub-soil of clay, are always to be pre- 

 ferred for an orchard where cider is the chief or 

 whole object in planting it : a shallow soil, wherever 

 situated, with a gravelly or rocky sub-soil, will be 

 found generally bad for the apple-tree. But pear- 

 trees are much less particular in regard to the nature 

 of the soil, than apple-trees, they succeeding in, it 

 has been said, almost any soil; yet in the deep 

 clayey soils of Somersetshire they do not succeed 

 as well as the apple, and hence are not, as in Glou- 



