THE HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



2: 



who grow one would grow five or ten, then might 

 our home supphes prove sufficient, or at least hring 

 an ahundant supply of wholesome fruit within reach 

 ofaU. 



Tlie Choice of a Site — Very much of success 

 or failure turns on this. The altitude and aspect 

 should first be considered. It should neither be too 

 high nor too low, on the crown of a hill or the 

 bottom of a valley. If the former the trees will 



sufEer from exposure, the fruit will be blown down 



the trees bent or broken with the winds. If the 

 latter, the trees wiU sufEer from excess of heat as 

 well as cold! It will be almost too hot for some of 

 the hardier fruits in summer, and so cold on bright 

 clear nights in the spriag, as to wreck the crops bj- 

 frosts. About half-way up a gently-roUing lull is 

 perhaps the best possible site for a fruit garden, so 

 far as the altitude is concerned. 



Now, as to aspects : south and west are undoubtedly 

 the best. But these may be extended to include a 

 few points of east at one end of the scale, and of 

 north at the other, in warm localities. In colder 

 places it is safer to avoid these extensions, and choose 

 southern and western aspects, pure and simple. 



These may seem small matters, but it is upon a 

 series of such that success in fruit-growing, and indeed 

 most of the operations in horticulture, depends. The 

 difference in temperature in different sites within a 

 few hundred yards of each other often amounts to 

 five or even ten degrees, and fruit crops are saved 

 or ruined within a far narrower range than that in- 

 volved in such variations of temperature. Besides, 

 other influences work against the trees in valleys. 

 There moisture accumulates, and though the moisture 

 of the world is on the whole one of the most efficient 

 preservers of its caloric, yet its accumulation in 

 valleys iutensifies the destructive energy of the frost 

 to blight and destroy the blossoming fruit-trees in 

 the early spring. The testimony of experience is 

 uniform on this poiat. Fruit gardens in the trough 

 of valleys are constantly blighted or blasted, while 

 those on rolling grounds or hills escape. Simul- 

 taneously with these facts, the readings of ther- 

 mometers in valleys constantly reveal a depression of 

 temperature of several degrees, varying with their 

 depth, from three to even ten degrees between that 

 of higher ground in the immediate neighbourhood. 



Other causes work towards the. destruction of 

 fruit-tree blossoms in the troughs of vaUeys. Among 

 these the stillness of the air is the most potent. It 

 is this stOlness that gives such destructive force to 

 the energy of radiation on clear nights, so that the 

 ■whole atmosphere from bank to sky is converted 

 into a plant-cooler of most destructive energy. On 

 xising groimd or undulated positions the air moves, 



and in its shifting the trees find their safety. Its 

 mere motion baulks the energy of radiation; the 

 heat of the plants is thus preserved, the blossoms 

 escape destruction, and a crop is insured. 



The opposite extreme, however, must be avoided, 

 and no one in his senses would attempt to post a 

 fruit garden or orchard in the teeth of the wind. 

 In that, the heat lost by the rude entrance of every 

 wind that blows would far exceed any that might be 

 husbanded and conserved by modifying the energy 

 of radiation, through the gentle and constant motion 

 of the air. 



Necessity of Shelter.— An elevated site for 

 the fruit garden does not necessarily mean an unduly 

 exposed one, and the more elevated the site the 

 greater the need of shelter, natural or artificial. 

 There is no shelter so efficient as that of a hUl or 

 mountain, rising up to some considerable elevation 

 above the highest point of the' fruit garden. If such 

 barriers are so disposed a? to shut out the north and 

 east winds, little more can be desired. Extended 

 slightly in both directions to exclude north-east and 

 north-west winds, the shelter would be perfect, 

 especially if the lulls were clothed with trees as well. 

 For barren mountains have a trick of rolling down 

 the cold air from their summits in mighty waves of 

 irresistible depression, that chill, perhaps destroy, 

 fruit trees or anything else that may lie in their 

 course. And just as sand is the best barrier to the 

 waves of the ocean, so trees and shrubs form the 

 most powerful shelter against the inroads of cold into 

 our fruit garden. 



Fortunately, too, for cultivators, though but few 

 can commend uprising hills as barriers to the cut- 

 ting blasts of the north and east winds, nor the 

 sunny sides of the same as the most perfect sites for 

 fruit gardens, yet all may raise up a barrier of Hving 

 trees, fringed with lower shrubs, against such mis- 

 chievous and destructive visitants as the north and 

 east winds. 



Shelter without shadow must, however, be the rule 

 in aU such matters as plantiug trees for shelter. 

 The higher and thicker the shelter needed, the 

 further it must be removed from the fruit garden. 

 No vigorous-growing trees should approach nearer to 

 fruit trees than from twenty to fifty feet. 



Two dangers have to be guarded against with re- 

 gard to such — the shade of the top, and the stealing 

 of the food of the fruit-trees by the roots of the 

 sheltering ones. Possibly the latter evil is the 

 greater and more dangerous, for wherever there is a 

 good larder fairly filled with good things, the roots 

 of wilding trees wUl be sure to find it, and to use it 

 up with alarming rapidity. Nature in this respect 

 seems ever struggling to establish her dominion over 



