450 Planting Fruit Trees and Bushes. [nov., 



in a friable condition ; and the pea crop is an accumulator of 

 nitrogen. 



The first operation should be surface cultivation to kill weeds, 

 followed, if necessary, by the application of a dressing of farmyard 

 manure over the whole of the land. Next come ploughing and 

 subsoiling, unless the land is to be dug with a spade, and in that 

 case what is called bastard trenching is essential. This consists 

 in the ordinary digging of the top spit and the stirring of nine 

 or ten inches below it with a spade or a fork without turning 

 the soil on to the surface. Such work is usually regarded as too 

 costly for planting on a large scale, for which the subsoiling is 

 best done by a steam cultivator, stirring the soil in two opera- 

 tions as nearly to the depth of two feet as possible. Where a 

 steam cultivator is not available, a subsoil plough, following 

 an ordinary plough, is commonly used. 



The make-shift plan of merely digging holes for trees in land 

 not deeply cultivated is a bad one, no matter to what depth the 

 soil in the holes is stirred. This is particularly the case where 

 the subsoil is retentive, the holes merely becoming wells for water 

 to drain into. When trees are to be planted in permanent 

 pasture this plan is the only one feasible ; but in such a case a 

 drain, deeper than the bottoms of the holes, should be laid 

 between each two rows. The holes should be six feet wide each 

 way, and the soil of that space should be kept cultivated for 

 some years after planting, until the trees are well grown. Ex- 

 periments on the Duke of Bedford's Fruit Farm, near Woburn, 

 have proved that nothing is so deleterious to the growth of 

 young fruit trees as letting grass grow closely around them. 



Before the holes are dug it is necessary, of course, to decide 

 what is to be planted in them. In most recently-planted 

 orchards for market purposes half-standard or bush apples or 

 plums, with gooseberries or currants between them, are grown. 

 Less commonly, tall standard apples, with bush apples or plums 

 or pyramid pears between them, have been planted. Half- 

 standards or bushes are much more convenient for pruning, 

 spraying, and picking than tall standards, and for that reason 

 are generally preferred. If it be intended to cultivate a planta- 

 tion with horses for some years at least, thus effecting a great 

 saving in the labour of keeping the land clean, half-standards 



