ITS USES. 
59 
of sweet apples are frequently planted liere for the purposes of fat- 
tening swine and cattle, which are allowed to run at large in them, 
Cider apples are varieties frequently useless for any other 
purpose. The best for this purpose are rather tough, piquant, 
and astringent ; their juice has a high specific quality, and they 
are usually great bearers ; as the Harrison, the Red Streak, and 
the Virginia Crab. 
Propagation. The apple for propagation is usually raised 
from seeds obtained from the pomace of the cider mills, and a 
preference is always given to that from thrifty young orchards. 
These are sown in autumn, in broad drills, in good mellow soil, 
and they remain in the seed buds, attention being paid to keep- 
ing the soil loose and free from weeds, from one to three years, 
according to the richness of the soil. When the seedlings are 
a little more than a fourth of an inch in diameter, they 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 three 
or four 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. 
^pple 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 satu- 
rated with moisture. Its favourite 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 
flavoured fruit, as well as the utmost longevity of the trees. 
Such a soil is moist rather than dry, the most favourable con- 
dition 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/* 
* Blowing sands, says Mr. Coxe, when bottomed on a dry substratum, and 
