148 
GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 
This price given near towns, shows that every coun¬ 
try labourer can afford to give as much, or more, for 
garden ground, than it is let at to the farmer; they 
should, therefore, always have so much garden ground 
for potatoes, and other vegetables, as they can culti¬ 
vate without losing time. 
A top-dressing of lime on garden ground, is sup¬ 
posed to be useful in destroying grubs ; and I have 
observed that a garden well cultivated, and kept clean 
by repeated hoeing and weeding, is less liable to the 
depredation of insects, than one neglected, or suffered 
to get foul and weedy. 
Orchards have been long and successfully cultivated 
in this county, particularly in the middle, south, and 
western parts ; where they are to be found, in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of towns, villages, and farm-houses; and 
the various kinds of fruit-trees are often dispersed over 
the country in hedge-rows, and form one of the pro¬ 
ductive articles of a farm. 
Fruit is an article of uncertain or casual production, 
gome years producing little,, or nothing, more than a 
supply for the table ; of which sort is the present year, 
1805, in which, cherries have borne a high price, sell¬ 
ing in the markets from 6d. to 9d. per lb.; plumbs 
are tolerably plentiful: of apples and pears, a 
slight scattering, sufficient for the table, or the 
supply of the markets only; little or none for cyder 
or perry; walnuts and chesnuts, a pretty full crop. 
In a plentiful year, or what is called a hit of fruit, 
the profusion is so very great, that in remote places, 
upon bad roads, the fruit will not pay for collecting 
and carrying to market, nor can casks be procured for 
containing the Avhole of its juice, so that large quan¬ 
tities are devoured by hogs, or suffered to rot on the 
ground, 
