571 
I am aware, that this will be objected to by many, on account of the trouble, which may appear to 
be great; but when it is considered, how much of this business may be done by a single person in a 
short time, it can have little force, and the benefit which the trees will receive by this management, 
will greatly recompense the trouble and expense. 
As these trees must be constantly fenced from cattle, it will be the best way to keep the land in 
tillage for some years, that by constant ploughing or digging the ground, the roots of the trees will 
be more encouraged, and they will make the more progress in their growth: but where this is done, 
whatever crops are sown or planted, should not be too near the trees, lest the nourishment should be 
drawn away from the trees; and as in the ploughing of the ground where it is so tilled, there must 
be care taken not to go too near the stem of the trees, whereby their roots would be injured, or the 
bark of their stems rubbed off, so it will be of great service to dig the ground about the trees where 
the plough does not come, every autumn, for five or six years after planting, by which time their 
roots will have extended themselves to a greater distance. 
It is a common practice, in many parts of England, to lay the ground down for pasture, after the 
trees are grown pretty large in their orchards; but this is by no means advisable, for I have fre¬ 
quently seen trees of above twenty years growth, almost destroyed by horses, in the compass of one 
week; and if sheep are put into orchards, they will constantly rub their bodies against the stems of 
the trees, and their grease sticking to the bark, will stint their growth, and in time will spoil them; 
therefore wherever orchards are planted, it will be much the better method to keep the ground 
ploughed or dug annually, and such crops put on the ground as will not draw too much nourishment 
from the trees. 
In the pruning of orchard-trees, nothing more should be done, but to cut out all those branches 
which cross each other, and, if left, would rub and tear off the bark, as also decayed branches, but 
never shorten any of their shoots. If suckers, or shoots from their stems, should come out, they must 
be entirely taken off annually; and when any branches are broken by the wind, they should be cut 
off, either down to the division of the branch, or close to the stem from whence it was produced; 
the best time for this work is in November, for it should not be done in frosty weather, nor in the 
spring, when the sap begins to be in motion. 
The best method to keep Apples for winter use is, to let them hang upon the trees until there is 
danger of frost, and to gather them in dry weather, laying them in large heaps to sweat for three 
weeks or a month; afterwards look them over carefully, taking out all such as have appearance of 
decay, wiping all the sound fruit dry, and pack them up in large oil-jars, which have been thoroughly 
scalded and dry, stopping them down close to exclude the external air: if this is duly observed, the 
fruit will keep sound a long time, and their flesh will be plump; for when they are exposed to the 
air, their skins will shrink, and their pulp will be soft. 
It has been lately made evident, particularly by the experiments and curious remark of T. A. 
Knight, Esq. that those varieties of the Apple, of which the original trees had perished from old age, 
could not be made to grow to any purpose. The grafts, he says, grow well for two or three years; 
but after that become cankered and mossy. When he first observed the unhealthy state of all the 
young trees of these kinds, he suspected that it arose from the use of diseased grafts taken from 
young newly grafted trees: but to remove still farther every probability of defect which might be 
communicated from the old trees, he inserted the young shoots and buds, taken from newly grafted 
trees, on other young stocks, and repeated this process six times in as many years, each year taking 
his grafts and buds from those inserted in the year preceding. Stocks of different kinds were also 
used; some were double grafted, others were obtained from trees which grew from cuttings, and 
others from the seeds of each kind afterwards inserted in them, under the idea that there might be 
