HORTICULTURAL JQURNAL. 293 



MANAGEMENT OF CIDER APPLE TREES. 



A practical treatise on the rearing and cultivation of Cider Apple Trees, 

 in Normandy, entitled " Traite pratique de V Education et de la Culture du 

 Pomrnier a Cidre, dans les Departments de V Ancienne Normandie" has 

 been lately published by the Cercle pratique d' Horticulture et de Botanique 

 of the department of the Seine-Inferieure. It contains, as we observed some 

 weeks ago, concise instructions on the subject ; and convinced that the work 

 has a very useful tendency, we have thought it desirable to furnish our readers 

 with a series of translations from it. 



The subject is by no means unimportant. In proof of this it is only ne- 

 cessary to adduce the facts, that in the cider counties, in a good season many 

 farmers clear their rents entirely by the produce of their cider trees ; and 

 hence new plantations of these are being extensively made. The strictures 

 in the first part of the treatise in question may prevent errors in the forma- 

 tion of these plantations ; and it will be seen, when pointed out, that many 

 errors are as easily avoided as practised. We may add, that many of the 

 strictures as well as the instructions that follow are applicable not only ta 

 cider apple trees, but likewise to other trees. 



PART I. 



* Critical remarks on various modes of cultivation which have been adopted, 

 and are still practised as regards the Cider Apple Tree. 



Formation of a J¥urserg.^-When a private nursery is formed for supply- 

 ing plants for an orchard, it is frequently established in a very bad situation, 

 such as the corner of a yard surrounded with Quick-hedges in which there 

 are large trees ; or even in a narrow space between the back of a building 

 and a hedge, with the view of getting shelter, or for the sake of economy of 

 enclosure. To save the small cost of one or two pieces of fence, a great por- 

 tion of the plants is lost, because some are drawn up by the shade of build- 

 ings or of trees, and others cannot thrive on account of the ground being 

 continually impoverished by the roots of the hedges and of the large trees 

 which usually grow in those hedges. 



Choice of the Plants. — A false economy often causes second or third rate 

 plants to be selected because of their cheapness. This is a mistake ; for al- 

 though plants of the second picking are not -altogether to be despised, and al- 

 though occasionally some plants may be found from among them that be- 

 come as good trees as those from the first ; yet it cannot be denied, that of 

 two plants of the same age, grown in the same soil, and having received the 

 same care, but which are of different vigor, the tallest and thickest should be 

 preferred. 



