English Orchards. 



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already planted to some extent by farmers who grow fruit 

 for sale upon their farms, and they have been very largely 

 adopted by market gardeners who combine fruit growing with 

 the production of vegetables, as well as by others who grow 

 fruit for sale or for their households. This method of 

 fruit-growing has been taken up as a business by those 

 who would not have dreamed of undertaking it before dwarf 

 trees were in vogue, and by cottagers and allotment holders, 

 who could not otherwise grow fruit with advantage. 



Plums are also grown as half standards and as bushes, and 

 many acres have been planted with bush plum trees in the 

 past few years. The fruit grown in this way is, as a rule, 

 finer and better coloured, and the trees can be pruned or 

 pinched, and cleansed from insects, lichens, mosses, and 

 fungi, far more easily. Root pruning, which is of great 

 advantage in certain circumstances, can be adopted in a far 

 more easy manner. Cherries are extensively grown upon 

 half standards and bushes, but half standard cherry trees are 

 generally preferred to bush trees, where this fruit is produced 

 upon anything like a large scale. 



In the selection of varieties of apple trees for planting, 

 consideration should be given to the soil, subsoil, climate, 

 situation, and other circumstances of different districts or 

 localities. But there are certain varieties which have been 

 planted very generally, and appear to flourish in most 

 varying conditions. For instance, Cox's Orange Pippin, 

 which is decidedly the finest apple known in this or any other 

 country, thrives as well in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, 

 Middlesex, and Surrey as in the loams of Kent, though its 

 size, colour, and general excellence naturally vary according 

 to the quality of the land. The Worcester Pearmain, a 

 beautifully-coloured variety, has also been largely planted, 

 and has done well in most places where the conditions are 

 at all suitable. The following early varieties of dessert 

 apples have also been planted in different districts with 

 success ; they are given in order of ripening : — Mr. Gladstone, 

 an early apple of the finest quality ; the Quarrenden, a most 

 suitable, well-coloured sort ; Irish Peach, Duchess of Olden- 

 burg, and Summer Golden Pippin or Ingestre. Among later 



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