SHELTER SITUATION. 401 



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 current of such air, always pre- 

 venting, 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 ; never- 

 theless, gentle slopes at the foot of hills, if of a good 

 depth of soil, are usually esteemed favourable situa- 

 tions ; but rich bottoms, with a good depth of dark 

 soil, and a subsoil of clay, are always to be preferred 

 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 So- 

 mersetshire they do not succeed as well as the apple, 

 and hence are not, as in Gloucestershire, objects of 

 much interest to the farmer. 



