ORCHARD MANAGEMENT. 21 



the end of five years from their removal. Every one expects 

 his trees to be the exceptionally successful ones, and so we 

 plant with the share for the brush heap in our full knowledge, 

 and we continue to furnish it. 



We prefer young trees, two years from the bud, to those 

 that are older ; large trees suffer so much by removal that 

 smaller ones often outstrip them in growth. 



The orchard should receive careful tillage for some time 

 after planting ; for how long will depend on circumstances, and 

 generous manuring will be required as long as it is expected 

 to bear fruit. This should not be excessive, but liberal and 

 regular. Wood ashes are preferred, but barn-yard manure as 

 a top-dressing will do well. Continuous surface culture may 

 be advised on level fields, but these fields are the exceptions 

 in New England. Upon all hillsides, our best orchard land, 

 the water will wash away the soil if grass is excluded. Deep 

 ploughing after the trees have attained some size is very bad 

 for an orchard ; a temporary growth is sometimes thus 

 secured, to be followed by a check, worse than the former 

 state. 



We do not know of an orchard that has been ploughed after 

 maturity, that has been benefited, but the reverse has been 

 often true. All the most vigorous old trees that we have 

 seen, have stood in grass. 



Not only is this ploughing detrimental to the thrift and 

 longevity of the trees, but it is injurious to the character of 

 the fruit. When we took possession of our farm, nearly forty 

 years ago, there were several old orchards, mostly of native 

 fruit ; one was in pasture, never ploughed, — too rocky ; one 

 ploughed, with succession of crops, as corn and potatoes, oats, 

 rye, then grass mowed for four or five years, then ploughed 

 again, but without manure; another, partly mowed, with 

 manure, the other part ploughed and cropped and then mowed 

 while in grass, without manure ; the fourth, divided by a lane, 

 so that a part was in permanent grass, mowed and manured, 

 a part pasture and the remainder pastured when in grass, but 

 often ploughed and cropped. As a boy, fifty years ago, I 

 remember them all as bearing abundantly, with fair fruit. 

 The next twenty years showed a marked decline in quantity 

 and also in quality for most of the trees, many of the trees 



