ITS USES. 59 



of sweet apples are frequently planted here for the purposes of fat- 

 tening swine and cattle, which are allowed to run at large in them. 



Cider apples are varieties frequently useless for any other 

 purpose. The best for this purpose are rather tough, piquant, 

 and astringent ; their juice has a high specific quality, and they 

 are usually great bearers ; as the Harrison, the Red Streak, and 

 the Virginia Crab. 



PROPAGATION. The apple for propagation is usually raised 

 from seeds obtained from the pomace of the cider mills, and a 

 preference is always given to that from thrifty young orchards. 

 These are sown in autumn, in broad drills, in good mellow soil, 

 and they remain in the seed buds, attention being paid to keep- 

 ing the soil loose and free from weeds, from one to three years, 

 according to the richness of the soil. When the seedlings are 

 a little more than a fourth of an inch in diameter, they should 

 be taken up in the spring or autumn, their tap roots shortened, 

 and then planted in nursery rows, one foot apart and three to 

 four feet between the rows. If the plants are thrifty, and the soil 

 good, they may be budded the following autumn, within three 

 or four inches of the ground, and this is the most speedy mode of 

 obtaining strong, straight, thrifty plants. Grafting is generally 

 performed when the stocks are about half an inch thick ; and 

 for several modes of performing it on the apple, see the remarks 

 on grafting in a previous page. When young trees are feeble 

 in the nursery, it is usual to head them back two thirds the length 

 of the graft, when they are three or four feet high, to make them 

 throw up a strong vigorous shoot. 



Apple stocks for dwarfs are raised by layers, as pointed out in 

 the article on Layers. 



Apple trees for transplanting to orchards should be at least 

 two years budded, and six or seven feet high, and they should 

 have a proper balance of head or side branches. 



SOIL AND SITUATION. The apple will grow on a great variety 

 of soils, but it seldom thrives on very dry sands, or soils satu- 

 rated with moisture. Its favourite soil, in all countries, is a 

 strong loam of a calcareous or limestone nature. A deep, strong 

 gravelly, marly, or clayey loam, or a strong sandy loam on a 

 gravelly subsoil, produces the greatest crops, and the highest 

 flavoured fruit, as well as the utmost longevity of the trees. 

 Such a soil is moist rather than dry, the most favourable con- 

 dition for this fruit. Too damp soils may often be rendered fit 

 for the apple by thorough draining, and too dry ones by deep 

 subsoil ploughing, or trenching, where the subsoil is of a heavier 

 texture. And many apple orchards in New-England are very 

 flourishing and productive on soils so stony and rock-covered 

 (though naturally fertile) as to be unfit for any other crop.* 



* Blowing sands, says Mr. Coxe, when bottomed on a dry substratum, and 



