THE APPLE. 



61 



should be taken up in the spring or autumn, their tap-roots shortened, 

 and then planted in nursery rows, one foot apart, and three to four feet 

 between the rows. If the plants are thrifty and the soil good, they may 

 be budded the following autumn, within one or two inches of the ground, 

 and this is the most speedy mode of obtaining strong, straight, thrifty 

 plants. Grafting is generally performed when the stocks are about half 

 an inch thick ; and for several modes of performing it on the Apple, see 

 the remarks on grafting in a previous page. "When young trees are 

 feeble in the nursery, it is usual to head them back two-thirds the 

 length of the graft, when they are three or four feet high, to make them 

 throw up a strong, vigorous shoot. 



Apple-stocks for dwarfs are raised by layers, as pointed out in the 

 article on Layers. 



Apple-trees for transplanting to orchards should be at least two 

 years budded, and six or seven feet high, and they should have a proper 

 balance of head or side branches. 



SOIL AND SITUATION. 



The Apple will grow on a great variety of soils, but it seldom thrives 

 on very dry sands, or soils saturated with moisture. Its favorite soil, in 

 all countries, is a strong loam of a calcareous or limestone nature. A 

 deep, strong, gravelly, marly, or clayey loam, or a strong sandy loam on 

 a gravelly subsoil, produces the greatest crops and the highest-flavored 

 fruit, as well as the utmost longevity of the trees. Such a soil is moist 

 rather than dry — the most favorable condition for this fruit. Too damp 

 soils may often be rendered fit for the Apple by thorough draining, and 

 too dry ones by deep subsoil ploughing, or trenching, where the subsoil 

 is of a heavier texture. And many apple orchards in New England are 

 very flourishing and productive on soils so stony and rock-covered 

 (though naturally fertile) as to be unfit for any other crop.* 



As regards site, apple orchards flourish best in southern and middle 

 portions of the country on north slopes, and often even on the steep 

 north sides of hills, where the climate is hot and dry. Farther north a 

 southern or southeastern aspect is preferable, to ripen the crop and the 

 wood more perfectly 



We may here remark that almost every district of the country has one 

 or more varieties which, having had its origin there, seems also peculiarly 

 adapted to the soil and climate of that locality. Thus the Newtown 

 Pippin and the Spitzenberg are the great apples of New York ; the 

 Baldwin and the Roxbury Russet, of Massachusetts ; the Bellflower and 

 the Rambo, of Pennsylvania and New Jersey ; and the Peck's Pleasant 



* Blowing- sands, says Mr. Coxe, when bottomed on a dry substratum, and 

 aided by marl or meadow mud, will be found capable of producing- very fine 

 Apple-trees. Good cultivation and a system of high manuring will always re- 

 munerate the proprietor of an orchard, except it be planted on a quicksand or a 

 cold clay ; in such soils, no management can prevent an early decay. One of the 

 most thrifty orchards I possess, was planted on a blowing sand, on which I carted 

 three thousand loads of mud on ten acres, at an expense of about twenty-five 

 dollars per acre, exclusive of much other manure ; on this land I have raised 

 good wheat and clover. Of five rows of the Winesap Apple planted upon it 

 eight years ago, on the summit of a sandy knoll, not one has died out of near an 

 hundred trees — all abundant bearers of large and fair apples. — Vieio of Fruit 

 Trees, p. 31. 



