126 On the Arrangement and Management 



Art. VII. On the Arrangement and Management of Fruit Trees in 

 Kitchen-Gardens. By Mr. Robert Errington. 



Having promised, in a former paper on fruit trees, to resume 

 the subject at a future opportunity, and to offer some suggestions 

 as to a different arrangement of them, and as to a better system 

 of management, I shall now attempt to make that promise good : 

 but, I must say, with some apprehensions that it will hardly be 

 admissible in your useful work, so much having already been 

 written on this subject, and, I fear I may add, so little done. It 

 seems to be generally admitted, both by writers on horticulture 

 and by good practitioners, that, when the fruit department must 

 be blended with the culinary one, it is by far the best arrange- 

 ment to place the fruit trees round the margins of the quarters, 

 and to leave the interior completely at the service of vegetables, 

 as well for the sake of economy as of effect. These borders are 

 generally formed from 4 ft. to 6 ft. in width, and are, for the most 

 part, cropped with some kind of vegetable that requires digging. 

 It seems surprising to me that a border of this width should be 

 deemed too much for a row of trees of this description ; but it 

 appears that such is the case; and, through the practice just alluded 

 to, the upper and most valuable roots of the fruit trees are con- 

 tinually cut away, and the trees driven to seek their food in a 

 subsoil of the most ungenial character. Whether trees of this 

 class possess the power of selection in regard to their food, I am 

 not physiologist enough to know ; but, if they do possess it, it 

 would be of little avail when they were situated in a barren sand, 

 clay, or gravel ; besides the great difference in the average tem- 

 perature of the soil, which temperature does, of course, decline 

 progressively downwards to a certain depth. Now, what is the 

 consequence to trees thus situated ? They are rendered doubly 

 liable to the blight produced by various kinds of insects : as, for 

 instance, the aphides, the scaly insect, the red spider, &c. ; all of 

 which, it is well known, will make way much more rapidly on a 

 diseased subject, than on a healthy one : and, very frequently, by 

 these means all the early-made wood is either crippled or de- 

 stroyed, and a later crop of watery wood is produced at or after 

 midsummer ; which, I hardly need say, is quite immature. In 

 trees thus situated, the sap in the shoots is put in motion a long 

 time before that in the roots; and the consequence is, that leaves 

 are produced chiefly from the fund of sap of the former year 

 deposited in the branches, and which, being of a sweeter character, 

 if I may use the expression, than the ascending sap, is the very 

 food for the above-named insects, as we find by experience ; and 

 the wood that is produced later is overtaken by the chills of 

 autumn, before the leaves have performed half their functions. 



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