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LETTER FIRST. 



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ON SITES, SOILS, ETC., FOR ORCHARDS AND GARDENS. 



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Dbah Sir, — Owing to the great difference 

 in climate between the Eastern and Western 

 parts of Canada it is very difficult, nay, almost 

 impossible, to give rules that will be exactly 

 suited to all loca'ities, and therefore careful at- 

 tention and long experience can only fully teach 

 what ia proptr in each section of the country ; 

 still the following observations will greatly aid 

 all who desire to engage in fruit culture. 



In the southern and western part of Canada 

 the more elevated portions of the farm or grounds 

 will, if the soil is suitable, be found the best for 

 planting fruit-trees, more especially of the more 

 tender varieties, while further to the north and 

 east these will be found too bleak unless natur- 

 ally or artificially protected by screens or belts 

 of trees, — evergreens being the best— from the 

 prevailing coldest wind in winter. It is a well- 

 known fact that the same degree of cold, if un- 

 accompanied with wind or protected from it, 

 will do very little injury to a tree, which, if in 

 an exposed situation, open to the wintry blasts, 

 would destroy or seriously injure it ; and as the 

 forests get cleared off this will be felt more and 

 more, aud greater care will be required for the 

 protection during winter of even the more hardy 

 varieties of fruits, than has heretofore been con- 

 sidered necessary. 



Experience has shown how difficult it is to raise 

 new healthy orchards in some places where old 

 ones have formerly flourished ; and much of this 

 difficulty may be attributed to the want of shelter 

 from the cutting down of the forest trees. No 

 doubt when the old orchards were planted, they 

 were well sheltered ; and it is for the first six or 

 eight years after trees are planted, when they 

 are growing fast, that they are most susceptible 

 of cold, and require the greatest care and protec- 

 tion. When they have fairly commenced bear- 

 ing, and their growth is consequently more slow, 

 they will seldom be injured by cold, until they 

 grow old and feeble. 



In the cold and more exposed situations in Scot- 

 land, it is customary to plant on the exposed sides 

 of the garden a belt of evergreen, and other trees 

 for its shelter ; and Mr. Tudor, the originator of 

 the ice-business in the United States, had a most 

 flourishing garden on the mos* exposed portion 

 of Nahant, where the stormy % ads from the At- 

 lantic made it previously impossible for a tree 



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or shrub to grow. The simple mode adopted by 

 him was the erection of screens, or open paling 

 fences, about 16 feet high, round the garden, 

 forming a double or treble row on the most expos- 

 ed side,, such fences b^ing placed about four feet 

 apart. Where they will grow, a belt of ever- 

 greens will be preferable to the fence, but with 

 him no tree would grow till these fences were 

 erected. 



Throughout the whole of Canada, but more 

 especially in Lower Canada, protection of this 

 kind would be found very beneficial, and in 

 many places absolutely essential to the success- 

 ful culture of fruit, and these belts should bo 

 planted at the same time, or, if possible, previous 

 to the planting of the garden or orchard. 



Fruit-trees will not succeed in a low, damp 

 situation, or where the subsoil is cold and wet. 

 When it is necessary to plant in such situations 

 the ground must be thoroughly under-drained 

 and trenched, or subsoil ploughed the year be- 

 fore you intend planting ; and it should be plen- 

 tifully supplied with ashes or lime to neutralize 

 what is called the acidity of the soil, caused by 

 water remaining long stagnant on it. It may 

 be taken as an invariable rule that wherever 

 the natural growth of the forest is stunted or 

 scrubby, it is lost labor to plant fruit-trees, un- 

 less the soil can be so amended by the above or 

 other methods as entirely to change its nature, 

 and make it suitable for the healthy growth of 

 trees. 



Even in the rich western prairies it is found, 

 in general, impossible to cultivate fruit-trees, 

 partly owing to the lack of the necessary con- 

 stituents in the soil for their healthy growth, 

 and partly from the total want of protection from 

 the cold blasts of winter, which sweep over the 

 unsheltered and boundless prairies with irre- 

 sistible force ; and the level lands of Lower 

 Canada (or the French country) are in much 

 the same predicament. 



The best localities for orchards and gardens 

 are those where the soil is naturally deep and 

 rich, with a warm subsoil, or one that can be 

 easily made so by under-draining. Where the 

 soil is peaty, or the rocks come too near the sur- 

 face, or where the subsoil is a tenacious clay, 

 the trees will rarely succeed well. It should 

 also be borne in mind that, though sandy soils 



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