376 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



the reason why they did not endeavour to plant here as 

 many Cherry trees as in Kent, which lies close beside 

 them, only that the river Thames divides them ? They 

 answered that it could not well be done, because the 

 Cherries in Essex never attain the same agreeable flavour 

 as in Kent. Another said that because the soil in Essex 

 is Gravel, grus, Cherry trees will not thrive there, ville 

 ej kersbars traden der fort ; on the other hand, Pear 

 trees flourish there well. 



Between Gravesend and Rochester I also saw [T. II., 

 p. n J a great number of Cherry orchards on both sides of 

 the road, especially towards the Gravesend side. The 

 Cherry trees were here planted not ordine quincunciali,- 

 but all in squares. The distance between two trees was 

 4 feet. The ground between and under the trees was 

 entirely used up as arable, or also sown with Sain Foin, 

 Clover, or Tares, Vicia Vulgaris Sativa, J. B. [Johann 

 Bauhin]. To use these orchards also as ploughed fields 

 seemed, however, to have something incongruous in it, 

 for since the fruit ripened some weeks before the wheat, 

 they were obliged, when they wished to have the use of 

 the fruit, in many places round and under the trees, as 

 well as between them, to trample down the wheat or the 

 crop sown, which we saw happened to all Wheat, as well 

 as Barley and Oats. But where the orchards were sown 

 with Clover, Sain Foin, and Tares {Vicia), it was not 

 incongruous, because these kinds of hay were commonly 

 cut and stocked before the fruit was fully ripe. The 

 English fruit-growers, Tragards mastare, maintain that 

 the fruit trees thrive best and bear the most abundant 

 and best flavoured fruit when the soil under and between 

 the trees is kept cultivated, halles brukad, and loose, like 

 a ploughed field, without any crops, grasses, or weeds 

 being allowed to grow thereon. They had shot and 

 hung hosts of dead Jackdaws, Kajor, Rooks, Rakor, 



