390 
On the Cultivation of Orchards, and 
the greatest promise of making good and healthy trees, and the 
most likely to be good bearers. They should have full and flou- 
rishing heads, and broad roundish leaves, as such generally bear 
the largest fruit, and the most abundant crop. In winter such 
trees will present a larger and fuller bud than those whose leaves 
are small and pointed ; but though these are favourable indica- 
tions of the size of the fruit, and the productiveness of the tree, 
they are by no means so with regard to other qualities, as the trees 
may be early or late bearers, and the fruit red, yellow, or green; 
and whether they will produce either good cider-ajiples, or those 
better adapted to the table, can only be known when they produce 
their first fruit. If they then prove not such as are desired, or 
there is too great a proportion of one sort, grafting in the head 
should be had recourse to. This will, it is true, protract the 
time of bearing a year or two ; but it is much better to submit to 
two or even three years' delay, than for a hundred years to have 
bad fruit. 
The motives of preference, for the purpose of making good 
cider, have been already discussed ; but it may be as well here to 
observe that too great a prevalence of pale and green fruit in an 
orchard might in many cases be corrected, as affects the cider, by 
obtaining crabs or wildlings to mi.x; with them, wherever they can 
be obtained, as they give an agreeable acerbity to the cider, while 
they check the tendency to excessive fermentation, and adapt it 
for keeping longer without change. This practice is very common 
in Ireland, where, it is said, excellent cider is produced by this 
means. Less is thought of there with regard to the selection of 
fruit for the orchard, and perhaps this disregard may in some 
degree arise from the corrective practice above alluded to. How- 
ever this be, there can be no doubt that the kind of fruit must 
have a very considerable influence on the quality of the cider, 
though the soil upon which the fruit is gi'own, and the skill exer- 
cised in making it into cider, are probably more influential. 
Pears. 
The pear-tree will grow, and produce great crops of fruit, on 
soils which are not favourable to apple-trees. For instance, on 
drier and lighter soils, consisting chiefly of sand. In Worcester- 
shire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire, they are often planted 
in hedgerows ; and from such trees the farmer frequently derives 
a large supply of excellent perry. The trees of the perry-pear 
are some of them so large that one will, in very favourable seasons, 
produce several hogsheads. There are, however, some objections 
to the practice of planting fruit-trees in hedgerows : they shade 
the land, are exposed to depredation, and require the exclusion of 
cattle during a considerable portion of the autumn. But we ought 
