464 Of Orchards. 



Nearly all the orchards on the banks of the Clyde in Scotland, 

 are planted upon bare, hard clayey land, where the soil is 

 very thin, and the subsoil an adhesive till, or ferruginous clay, 

 of the very worst quality, incumbent on sand-stone, of the coal 

 formation ; yet, though the precaution of laying flags under 

 the roots of the fruit-trees, was talked of, and in some few in- 

 stances acted upon, fifty years ago, it has never come into 

 general practice. Not a tree in some hundreds has ever been 

 placed on flags ; no advantage was found to be derived from 

 the practice, and it is now abandoned. The trees that were 

 planted without flags, have been found to grow as well, and 

 to be as productive of fruit, as those that had these appen- 

 dages. 



By some, mixtures of lime, night-soil and soot, have been made 

 up, to be put upon the bark of the young trees, as a protection 

 from the attacks of hares and rabbits. But as this has an of- 

 fensive smell, and stains every thing that touches the trees, 

 it is much better, to twist ropes of straw round them, or to fix 

 the end of a few twigs of broom into the ground, at the root 

 of each tree, and to tie them to the tree by a rope. 



It is a maxim in the management of the orchards in Scot- 

 land, (which is peculiarly necessary in that country, on ac- 

 count of the variableness of the climate), to plant a consider- 

 able number of different sorts, both of the early and the late 

 kinds : for at one time, the blossom of a particular variety, 

 may be destroyed by frost or a moist north-east wind, while 

 the blossom of another kind, either earlier or later, may es- 

 cape : 



Where the Devonshire plan is adopted, of covering the 

 ground with trees, they should be planted in quincunx, or in 

 the centre of circles, in contact with each other, according to 

 the following plan ( 489 ) : 



