ISOLATED TREES AND ORCHARDS. 41 



consider a very important thing. My observation and expe- 

 rience convince me that a single row of trees set around a 

 field by the walls, or an individual tree by itself, will 

 not do as well in any respect as an orchard set out in 

 rows of trees forty feet apart, if } r ou please, more or less. 

 The fruit that grows on a single row of trees, or on a single 

 isolated tree, is usually very wormy, crabbed, knurly, and of 

 inferior quality. And my observation is, that trees in that 

 condition do not produce so good crops. My explanation of 

 it is this : that in a given space there are a given number of 

 insects, and enough of them will gather on a single row of 

 trees, or on an isolated tree, to destroy perhaps the whole of 

 the fruit growing on those trees ; whereas, in the case of an or- 

 chard, the insects being distributed among so much more fruit, 

 their mischief is less noticeable, and we have finer fruit. On 

 my brother's farm, which adjoins mine, a single row of trees 

 was set out and arrived at full maturity at the same time with 

 an orchard adjoining. That single row of trees has been cut 

 down as a nuisance, from the fact that the trees bore no fruit, 

 or none of any value. I have seen a good many instances of 

 that kind. On the farm where I was born, there was a sin- 

 gle row of apple-trees that I remember from my boyhood up, 

 that never produced any crop of fruit, while orchards in the 

 neighborhood were loaded with handsome and good apples. 



Mr'. Kinney of Worcester. I have a row of apple-trees 

 that produce more fruit in even years than an entire orchard 

 of three acres. 



Mr. Sears of Worcester. I have planted apple-trees 

 around stone walls, and the like of that, and for the last six 

 years they have produced, in the bearing years, more than 

 double what my orchard has, where I have the trees set in reg- 

 ular rows, and cultivated with as much care as has usually been 

 taken with such orchards. I have in mind some trees that 

 were set out twenty-five years ago, of the Greening variety, 

 (which have not been great bearers with us here), and this 

 year, and two years ago, I picked from five to six barrels 

 from these Greenings when those in the orchard did not bear 

 more than half or two-thirds as much. 



Mr. Warner of Sunderland. I suppose that apple-grow- 

 ing can only be done successfully on poor land. It would 

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