English Orchards. 



3 



have not been sufficiently general or systematic to enable it 

 to compete with that imported from the United States and 

 Canada, although there have been many new and valuable 

 varieties evolved during the last twenty-five years, and there 

 is a decided tendency to plant better kinds of apples, at least 

 among the more intelligent cultivators. In the United 

 States there has been continuous improvement in the condi- 

 tion of the apple orchards during the last fifty years, conse- 

 quent upon the complaints made, about seventy years ago, 

 of their neglected condition and of the disregard of proper 

 principles of management. 



Ignorance and carelessness in planting fruit trees have 

 helped to ruin many orchards in this country. Young trees 

 have been either simply rammed into small shallow holes 

 with their roots twisted up in spiral coils so that they could 

 not spread laterally and equably ; or the holes were made 

 far too deep, often in untrenched soil, into which the trees 

 were thrust with the bases of their stems considerably below 

 the level of the ground, so that the cotled-up roots could not 

 make the extension necessary for the proper and vigorous 

 development of the trees. Much injury has also been caused 

 to fruit trees by their not having been planted at once after 

 being lifted ; the trees have been left for two or more days 

 lying about in sheds or even in the open air, without earth 

 or covering of any kind. Neglect to trim the roots, and 

 excessive and unscientific trimming, by which the roots were 

 not left in proper proportion to the branches, have also been 

 sources of mischief. Sorauer, in his Physiology of Planls^ says, 

 " A tree intended for transplanting must have a root-system 

 consisting of a great number of short branches provided with 

 many rootlets so that the whole absorptive system is limited 

 to a small area,'' and he adds that this root-system can only 

 be obtained by systematically pruning the roots from the 

 very commencement, entailing the repeated transplanting of 

 young trees. The usual time for planting fruit trees in this 

 country is in the autumn. It is held by some that the spring 

 would be a better season, but although there is the chance of 

 winter frosts affecting the roots of autumn planted trees, on 

 account of the porosity of recently stirred soil, drought 



