120 
THE ORCHARD, ITS SURFACE AND DRAINAGE. 
the Bare-land Pear , takes its name from the coldness and poverty of the soil it grows on : thus 
Perry might be produced to great profit and advantage on many a soil that will scarcely give back 
the labour spent on it in other ways. The old proverb tells unfortunately against it: 
“ He who plants Pears 
Plants for his heirs.” 
and the patriotism which should plant Perry Orchards is not always to be found. 
Surface. —The question of turf or tillage as best adapted for orcharding has been much 
discussed ; and pasturage has been commonly favoured under the idea that the soil beneath the 
trees was thus kept more cool and moist during the heat of summer. This is not the case ; for the 
crop of pasture, or hay, or green crops of any kind, not only require much moisture for their own 
growth which they take from the soil, but they also exhale much more moisture during the heat of 
the day than is compensated for by the dew that falls on them by night; and thus, in both ways, the 
trees are robbed in dry weather of the moisture necessary for their healthy and fruitful growth. 
The old orchard writers are therefore right in giving preference to tillage, rather than to 
pasture land, for an Orchard. Thomas Andrew Knight, and most other Herefordshire authorities, 
think there is no more suitable place for a young Orchard than a Hopyard ; and the most approved 
method in Kent at the present day is to cultivate the Orchard as a Hop garden until such time as 
the fruit trees are large enough to yield a paying crop. The trees profit by the cultivation and the 
protection given to the hops ; they grow more freely ; bear finer fruit; and yield, it is said, a longer- 
keeping Cider. As the trees grow large, the hops must be uprooted or other green crops given up, 
and the field laid down to permanent pasture. 
In America roots are almost always grown in the first five years in new Orchards, and the 
soil deeply ploughed every year at a proper distance from the trees. They consider grain crops as 
too exhausting and injurious to the soil. The home Orchard attached to most Herefordshire and 
Devonshire farms must be pasturage of necessity, for the great convenience it affords for the ewes 
and lambs in spring, or the ordinary farm cattle at all seasons. 
Drainage. —A due amount of moisture in the soil is absolutely necessary to the proper 
growth of the higher forms of vegetation, but it should not be in excess, and above everything, it 
must not be stagnant. A want of good drainage is fatal to an Orchard. The temperature of water- 
logged soil is always low. The warm rains of spring run off the surface without mixing with the 
cold water left there by winter ; and it is very late in the year before the sun can lessen its quantity 
by evaporation, and impart warmth to the soil. If water moreover remains long stagnant in contact 
with any vegetable matter it soon becomes impure by the formation of noxious gases, and thus is 
rendered positively injurious to the trees growing there. An Orchard in this condition is a miserable 
sight; the trees are rugged and stunted in growth, their boughs are weak, covered with lichen or 
moss, and can seldom produce much fruit; and yet it is a sight that is by no means uncommon. 
A good Orchard must therefore be well drained by art, if not by nature. The excess of 
water should flow off gradually, so as to leave the soil porous and ready to receive from the atmosphere 
