ENGLISH ORCHARD DISTRICTS.—THE MOST FAVOURABLE SOILS AND
CLIMATE.—LIME.—PRACTICAL DEDUCTION.—DISEASES.—PREVENTION AND
REMEDIES.—SUGGESTIONS.
[Sidenote: _ENGLISH ORCHARD DISTRICTS._]
There are but few orchards in England, except in certain districts,
and in these they abound, and are often very extensive. The inquiry
naturally arises, What has given those districts their distinction in
this respect? Have they any natural advantages which makes orcharding
more profitable in them than in other parts of the country? In
reply, I learn, that the orchard districts are all distinguished for
a comparatively mild climate. They are nearly all in the south and
south-western counties, while in the northern and eastern counties I do
not know of any. Hereford is a somewhat hilly county, and, as I have
remarked, where the hills are too steep for easy cultivation, it is
usual to plant orchards; but the south side of such hills is preferred
to the north, and, even here, a crop is sometimes entirely lost by a
late and severe spring frost. A south-east slope is preferred, the
south-east winds being the driest. I suspect another reason why it
is found better is, that the south-west winds, coming off the ocean,
are the stronger. My own observation has led me to think that the
apple-tree is much affected by an exposure to severe winds. Most sorts
of trees do not thrive very well upon the sea-shore, and this is
usually laid to the account of salt spray or “salt in the air.” It will
be found, however, that trees grown inland upon very exposed sites,
have the same peculiarities with those in the vicinity of the sea; that
is, they are slow of growth and _scrubby_.
Another important circumstance to be noticed, as distinguishing the
apple districts, is in the nature of their soils. These are found,
however varying otherwise, invariably to have a large proportion of
lime, and generally of potash, in their chemical composition. With
reference to this I quote the observations of Mr. Frederick Falkner.[1]
[1] Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. p. 881.
“Great light has been lately thrown upon the adaptation of soils
to particular plants, and it is now easy to account for the
predilection, so to speak, of the apple-tree for soils that abound
in clays and marls. All deciduous trees require a considerable
proportion of potash for the elaboration of their juices in the
leaves, and are prosperous, or otherwise, in proportion to the
plentiful or scanty supply of that substance in the soil. Liebig
has shown, that the acids generated in plants are always in union
with alkaline or earthy bases, and cannot be produced without
their presence.... Now the apple-tree, during its development,
produces a great quantity of acid; and therefore, in a corresponding
degree, requires alkaline, and, probably, earthy bases also, as an
indispensable condition to the existence of the fruit.”
Again, the same writer:
“It cannot be denied that ammonia, and also the humus of decaying
dung, must have some influence on the growth of the tree in such
soils, and also in the development of the fruit; but it is most
certain, at the same time, that these alone would be perfectly
inefficient for the production of the fruit without the co-operation
of (the alkaline bases.) The size, and perhaps the flavour of the
fruit, may be somewhat affected by the organic part of the manure,
but its very existence depends upon the presence in the soil of a
sufficient quantity of those inorganic or mineral substances which
are indispensable to the formation of acids.”
But it is also found by analysis that lime enters into the composition
of the _wood_ of the apple-tree in very large proportions. By the
analysis of Fresenius, the ash of the wood of the apple contains 45.19
per cent. of lime and 13.67 per cent. of potash. By the analysis of Dr.
Emmons, of Albany, N. Y., the ash of the sap-wood of the apple contains
of lime 18.63 per cent. and 17.50 per cent. of phosphate of lime.
[Sidenote: _THE MOST FAVOURABLE SOILS AND CLIMATE._]
But it is not wherever soils of the sort I have described (calcareous
sandstones and marly clays) abound in a district, that you find that
the farmers have discovered that it is for their interest to have
orchards; nor are they common in all the milder latitudes of England;
but _wherever_ you find a favourable climate, _conjoined with_ a
strongly calcareous and moderately aluminous soil of a sufficient
depth, there you will find that for centuries the apple-tree has
been extensively cultivated. Evelyn speaks, 1676, of the apples of
Herefordshire and says there were then 50,000 hogsheads of cider
produced in that county yearly. The ancient capital of modern
Somersetshire, one of the present “Cider Counties,” was known by the
Romans as Avallonia, (the town of the apple orchards.) It would not be
unlikely that the universal ceremony in Devonshire, of “shooting at the
apple-tree,” (hereafter described,) originated in some heathen rite of
its ancient orchardists.
To obtain choice dessert fruit, the apple in England is every where
trained on walls, and in the colder parts it is usual to screen a
standard orchard on the north by a plantation of firs. There is no
part of the United States where the natural summer is not long enough
for most varieties of the apple to perfect their fruit. In Maine, and
the north of New Hampshire and Vermont, the assortment of varieties
is rather more limited than elsewhere, I believe; but I have eaten a
better apple from an orchard at Burlington, Vermont, than was ever
grown even in the south of England. We may congratulate ourselves
then, that all that we need to raise the best apples in the world,
any where in the northern United States, is fortunately to be procured
much more cheaply than a long summer would be, if that were wanting.
The other thing needful, judging from the experience of England for a
length of time past record, in addition to the usual requisites for
the cultivation of ordinary farm crops, is abundance of lime. This is
experience; and science confirms it with two very satisfactory reasons:
first, that apple-tree wood is made up in a large part of lime, which
must be taken from the soil; and, second, that before the apple-tree
can turn other materials which it may collect from the soil and
atmosphere into fruit, it must be furnished with a considerable amount
of some sort of alkali, which requisite may be supplied by lime.
There is but little else that we can learn from the English
orchardists, except what to avoid of their practices. The cider
orchards, in general, are in every way miserably managed, and the
greater number of those that I saw in Herefordshire were, in almost
every respect, worse than the worst I ever saw in New England. The
apple in England is more subject to disease; and I should judge, from
what was told me, that in a course of years it suffered more from the
attacks of insects and worms than in America. The most deplorable
disease is canker. This malady is attributed sometimes to a “cold,
sour” soil, sometimes to the want of some ingredients in the soil that
are necessary to enable the tree to carry on its healthy functions,
sometimes to the general barrenness of the soil, and sometimes to the
“_wearing out of varieties_.” The precaution and remedies used by
gardeners (rarely by orchardists) for it, are generally those that
would secure or restore a vigorous growth to a tree. The first of these
is deepening and drying the soil, or deep draining and trenching. The
strongest and most fruitful orchards, it is well known, are those which
have been planted upon old hop-grounds, where the soil has been deeply
tilled and manured for a series of years with substances that contain a
considerable amount of phosphorus, such as woollen rags and bones. The
roots of the hop also descend far below the deepest tillage that can
be given it; (in a calcareous gravelly subsoil they have been traced
ten feet from the surface;) a kind of subsoiling is thus prepared for
the apple by the decay of the hop roots. In some parts it is the custom
to introduce the hop culture upon the planting of a young orchard, the
hops occupying the intervals until the branches of the trees interfere
with them. Nothing is more likely than this to ensure a rapid and
healthy growth of the trees.
I recommend to those who intend planting an orchard, to have the ground
for it in a state of even, deep, fine tilth beforehand, and to plant
in the intervals between apple or pear trees some crop, which, like
hops, will be likely to get for itself good feeding and culture for
several years. Peach-trees, and dwarf apples (on douçain stocks) and
pears (on quince stocks), answer very well for this, and will make a
handsome return some years before the standard apples and pears come
into bearing.
[Sidenote: _THE MOST FAVOURABLE SOILS AND CLIMATE._]
With regard to the richness of the soil, however, it is said that
“although high and _exciting_ modes of cultivation may flatter for a
while by specious appearances, it is a grave consideration whether they
do not carry serious evils in their train.” This caution will remind
the American horticulturist of Mr. Downing’s recommendation to those
planting orchards on the _over-deep and rich_ Western alluvial soils,
to set the trees upon hillocks. The danger apprehended is in both cases
the same, that of too succulent growth. Mr. Williams, of Pitmaston, a
distinguished English horticulturist, has found deficient ripeness of
the young wood to be the prime predisposing cause of the canker. He
recommends every year the shortening in of each shoot of the young
unripened wood, which he says will preserve trees of old “worn out”
varieties, as “perfectly free from canker as those of any new variety.”
An impenetrable bottom of stone, at not more than three feet from the
surface, is frequently made as a precaution against canker. I have
been told that in the ancient orchards attached to monasteries, such a
flagging of brick or stone is often found under the whole area of the
orchard. This would seem at first sight to be directly opposed to the
other precaution, of thorough-draining and deepening the surface soil;
but it may be considered that the injury which stagnant water would
effect is in a degree counteracted when the roots do not descend below
the influence of the atmosphere and the heat of the sun. It is not
unlikely that these influences would extend to a depth of three feet
from the surface, in a soil that had been so thoroughly trenched and
lightened up as it necessarily must be to allow of a paving to be made
under it. The paving does not probably much retard the natural descent
of water from the surface, nor does it interfere with its capillary
ascent; the trenching makes the descent of superabundant water from the
surface _more_ rapid, while the increased porosity of the trenched soil
gives it increased power of absorption, both from the subsoil and the
atmosphere, as well as of retention of a healthy supply of moisture.
The paving also prevents the roots from descending below where this
most favourable condition of the soil has been made to exist. The
effect would doubtless be greatly better if thorough-draining were
given in addition; but so far as it goes, the under-paving and
trenching is calculated to effect the same purpose as deep drainage: to
secure a healthy supply of heat, light, and moisture to all the roots.
It is evident that the precautions and remedies which have been found
of service against canker, whether operations upon the roots or the
foliage, are all such as are calculated to establish or replace the
tree in circumstances favourable to its general thriving, healthy
condition.
[Sidenote: _SUGGESTIONS._]
This suggests the idea that canker may be the result of a general
constitutional debility of the tree, not occasioned by any one cause
or set of causes, but resultant from all and any circumstances
unfavourable to the healthy growth of a tree; and it is a question
whether the same may not be thought of the peculiar diseases of other
trees, the peach, the pear, the plum, the sycamore, and perhaps even of
the rot of the potato.