404 TREES FROM SEED THE SADDLE GRAFT. 



stand in the orchard (each tree being at least twenty- 

 five feet distant from the other) be well dug about 

 one foot deep, and in a circle of about eight or ten 

 feet in diameter. Then let a proper quantity of 

 apple-seed, obtained from the pressed apples of the 

 cider-house, be strewed over each circle, and let the 

 earth be raked over the seed so as to cover it pro- 

 perly. This process may be effected any time be- 

 tween the end of October and March. November 

 is perhaps the best time. During the next year a 

 great variety of plants will come up in each circle ; as 

 the summer proceeds, let the weak and small plants 

 be pulled up, so as to make room for the strong and 

 vigorous ones. The next year let them be further 

 reduced, so that if there be in each circle six, or at 

 most ten vigorous plants, there will be more than 

 enough. The third or fourth year, they may be all 

 grafted with such fruit as you may choose : and in 

 the course of a year or two, the strongest and best 

 graft in each of the circles being suffered to remain, 

 the rest may be either thrown away or removed to 

 other plantations ; and thus a valuable orchard may 

 be reared more early, by many years, than by the 

 plans now adopted ; for, do what we will, transplan- 

 tation in general retards the growth of trees, two or 

 three, and sometimes many years. The best kind of 

 graft for the young plant, is, beyond a doubt, the 

 saddle graft, the operation for which every gardener 

 knows how to perform. It is scarcely necessary to 

 mention, that the circles must be, of course, well 

 fenced from the depredations of cattle, and be hoed 



