FRUITS. CHAP. 



gave him about six hundred trees upon ten acres of 

 land. When I saw the trees, they had attained pretty 

 nearly their full size, and had come to within a few feet 

 of causing the extreme branches of one tree to touch 

 those of another. It is the fashion in that country to 

 shake down the apples that are intended for cider, and 

 to gather those only that are intended for eating. As 

 soon as the apples are shaken down, they are put up into 

 heaps in the form of haycocks, in which state they lie 

 till they are removed to be made into cider ; and, I re- 

 member seeing them in this state in Mr. PLATT'S orchard, 

 the cocks being as thick upon the ground as those of a 

 middling crop of hay. This gentleman, from whose 

 orchard came the first cuttings that I received from 

 America, had a very pretty nursery of his own, and solely 

 for his own use. In that he propagated all his fruit-trees, 

 and he planted them out very small in his orchards, 

 taking care, when he sowed the orchards with grain, not 

 to suffer the wheat or the rye or the oats to stand too 

 close to the young trees. After the trees get to be stout, 

 and able to resist cattle, the land is laid down for grass, 

 and in so hot a country, the shade of the trees is no 

 injury to the grass ; but appears to be the contrary ; for 

 the cattle there will feed under the shade of trees, when 

 they will not feed elsewhere. The after-pruning of 

 orchard-trees consists in constantly taking off all shoots 

 that come out any where in the middle of the tree, and 

 in carefully cutting away every bit of dead wood, whether 

 occasioned by blight, by wind, or by any other cause. As 

 to the cultivation of orchards, when the trees begin to give 

 out bearing, or to bear poor or small fruit, they, in Ame- 

 rica, first put manure to a good distance round the tree j 



