178 



FRUITS. 



[chap. 



after all, you resort to, and are compelled to resort to, to keep the 

 sheep from barking the trunks, or the cows from rubbing them to 

 pieces ; and particularly if you reckon the loss that you sustain in 

 the tardy arrival of the crop ; if you reckon these expenses and 

 these losses, they very far exceed in amount the expenses of the 

 way that I recommend. The usual practice in America very much 

 resembles the practice here, and is attended with much about the 

 same consequences. Those who do the thing well there break up 

 the pasture, and cultivate grain of different sorts, or Indian corn, 

 until the trees have attained a size to set all cattle at defiance. 

 The finest orchard that I ever saw belonged to Mr. Platt in the 

 township of North Hempstead in Long Island. The rows of trees 

 were at about thirty feet apart, and the trees at about twenty-five 

 feet apart in the row, the trees of one row placed opposite the in- 

 tervals of the other row. This gave him about six hundred trees 

 upon ten acres of land. When I saw the trees, they had attained 

 pretty nearly their full size, and had come to within a few feet of 

 causing the extreme branches of one tree to touch those of another. 

 It is the fashion in that country to shake down the apples that are 

 intended for cider, and to gather those only that are intended for 

 eating. As soon as the apples are shaken down, they are put up 

 into heaps in the form of haycocks, in which state they lie till they 

 are removed to be made into cider ; and I remember seeing them 

 in this state in Mr. Platt's orchard, the cocks being as thick upon 

 the ground as those of a middling crop of hay. This gentleman, 

 from whose orchard came the first cuttings that I received from 

 America, had a very pretty nursery of his own, and solely for his 

 own use. In that he propagated all his fruit-trees, and he planted 

 them out very small in his orchards, taking care, when he sowed 

 the orchards with grain, not to suffer the wheat or the rye or the 

 oats to stand too close to the young trees. After the trees get to 

 be stout, and able to resist cattle, the land is laid do^^^l for grass, 

 and in so hot a country, the shade of the trees is no injury to the 

 grass ; but appears to be the contrary ; for the cattle there will 

 feed under the shade of trees, when they will not feed elsewhere. 

 The after pruning of orchard-trees consists in constantly taking off 

 all shoots that come out anywhere in the middle of the tree, and in 

 carefully cutting away every bit of dead wood, whether occasioned 

 by blight, by wind, or by any other cause. As to the cultivation of 

 orchards, when the trees begin to give out bearing, or to bear poor 



