THE HAEDY FEUIT GARDEN. 



29 



safe rule to look round before planting, and observe 

 what sorts of fruit thrive best in the neighbourhood. 

 We may save much time and expense and future dis- 

 appointment if such only or chiefly are planted. 

 Not only certain fruits, but even special varieties of 

 Apples, Pears, Cherries, Plums, thrive best in cer- 

 tain neighbourhoods. Thus guided by results, and 

 led aright by the irresistible logic of facts, it would 

 be impossible to go far astray. 



While much of this is written that no one, how- 

 ever unfavom-ably placed, need despair of fruit- 

 growing, the writer would indeed be sorry to find 

 that such remarks about soil led any to suppose 

 that no special preparation need be made. For no 

 soil can possibly be too good for the fruit garden. 

 This is obvious on the face of it, for fruit-trees are 

 a permanent crop. Once planted, established, and 

 skilfully treated, they go on bearing for ten, twenty, 

 thirty, fifty, or more years at a stretch. 



Hence the reasonableness and necessity of starting 

 with the best possible soil, and plenty of it. The 

 phrases are vague, and it is needful to be more 

 definite. For example, most readers will be more or 

 less well acquainted with at least two very distinct 

 varieties of good soil — viz., that found on old and 

 well-worn, cropped, manured kitchen gardens, in 

 which the tilth is rich and deep ; and that of old 

 meadow-land that has been under grass for scores of 

 years — it may be a century. Each of these two 

 widely-differing kinds of land is good, perhaps 

 equally good, in its way. The first is full to 

 overflowing of the elements of growth — a normal 

 mixture, to borrow a phrase from the water- cult urist, 

 in which the plants can get enough and to spare of 

 all they need. The latter, through the annual 

 growth and decay of the grasses, and the residuum 

 of enrichment that each leaves to the soil, is also 

 rich in plant-food. Still no two soils, of probably 

 nearly equal growing strength, could well be more 

 unlike. The old kitchen garden soil is fine as an 

 ash-heap ; the meadow is full of fibre, and yet so 

 tenacious as to bind all firmly together, lifting in 

 whole spadefuls, and retaining their form as if they 

 had been set in a mould. 



And then these typical soils differ almost as much 

 in quality as appearance. Either is best for certain 

 purposes. For example, for the production of sweet, 

 crisp vegetables, or the rapid willow-like growth of 

 forest trees, the old kitchen garden earth would 

 beat the other, especially at starting. But for 

 forming a fruit garden, the soil of the old meadow is 

 infinitely to be preferred. 



Such land is grass-land in a double sense. It not 

 only grows but is largely made from grass, and 

 notwithstanding all that has been written of the 

 potency of worms as surface soil makers, and the 



science and practice of manuring, the growth and 

 decay of the grasses is, nevertheless, still the slow 

 and sure process by which most of our finest surface 

 tilths are formed. Nor only this, but soils so made 

 are by far the best for the growth of fruit-trees. 

 This was one of the discoveries made by the first 

 gardeners, and which is not likely to be superseded. 

 The craving of gardeners throughout all ages for 

 maiden loamSj their use of them for all purposes at 

 all seasons, and especially their determination to 

 have them pure and simple, of the best quality, for 

 their fruit-trees, is one of the most striking instances 

 of uniformity of faith and practice to be found with= 

 in the wide domain of physics or of morals. In this 

 matter there is no dissent from orthodox opinions 

 among skilled horticulturists, whose cry ever is, and 

 ever will be, for maiden loam, and more of it, for 

 most of their plants and all their fruit-trees. 



Loams. — What is loam ? how and where shall we 

 get it ? and how are we to distinguish between those 

 of different sorts ? Leaving details for more special 

 treatment, the term "loam " is used here in a general 

 sense, and is applied to the top spit of meadow or 

 pasture land, the older and the longer fed with sheep, 

 bullocks, and deer, the better. Pastures, however, 

 allowed to run up into hay, are spoilt as regards good 

 diggings of loam for horticulturists. The term loam 

 in this wide sense necessarily includes soils of widely 

 differing localities and different qualities. Quality is 

 largely determined by geological formation, original 

 soil and subsoil before being laid down to grass, 

 watershed, climate, and the length of time it has 

 been under pasturage without being broken up. 

 The longer it has been under grass the better ; for the 

 growth and decay of the grasses, as we have already 

 seen, is the chief agent in the formation and growth 

 of good loam. For practical convenience, loams are 

 mostly classified thus : sandy, clayey, calcareous, 

 hazel, and mixed. The first are called light, the 

 second heavy, the third chalky, the fourth fibrous 

 loam. The fifth, which is composed of all the other 

 four, and many sub-varieties of each, is most appro- 

 priately designated mixed, and for many piu-poses it 

 is the best of all. All of these general classes of 

 loams have many varieties in nature, and are yet 

 more widely varied by the infinite mixings and 

 compoundings practised by horticulturists. But the 

 age of the latter is almost past, and there is a strong 

 tendency in modern horticulture to revert to more 

 simple soils for most cultural purposes. 



Sandy loams may be described as those consisting 

 of from seventy to eighty per cent, of sand, with 

 from ten to twenty per cent, of clay, and very little 

 lime. Clayey loam contains about equal portions of 

 sand and clay, and from five to ten per cent, of lime. 



