Orchardist

“ In conclusion, the orchardist cannot be too strongly impressed with the importance of cultivating his young trees in the most thorough manner; nor can he exercise too much care in avoiding injury to the stems and roots, in [250] practising this constant culture of the soil. In collections of dwarf fruit trees, he will have less difficulty on this score, because he will be restricted to hand-labor; but the spade and fork will be found much more expensive in their use than the plow and cultivator. ”

“ And yet, when we come to travel about the country, and to see the shrubberies, the parks, the orchards, fruit-gardens, and vineyards, as they are, we shall be struck with the great amount of ignorance or neglect manifested by what we everywhere behold! Still more shall we be surprised, when we hear nurserymen and orchardists, men who have had opportunities for extended observation, and those too, who are considered successful cultivators, advocate the idea that trees should not be pruned at all. ”

“ There is a spectral quality about everything upon which the eye falls: the woods, like great green clouds, the wayside flowers, the still farm-houses half lost in orchard bloom—all seem to exist in a dream. Everything is so still, everything so supernaturally green. Nothing moves or talks, except the gentle susurrus of the spring wind swaying the young buds high up in the quiet sky, or a bird now and again, or a little brook singing softly to itself among the crowding rushes. ”

“ In these modern days men have lost the pleasures of the orchard; yet an old-fashioned orchard is the most delicious of places wherein to idle away the afternoon of a hazy autumn day, when the sun seems to shine with a soft slumberous warmth without glare, as if the rays came through an aerial spider's web spun across the sky, letting all the beauty but not the heat slip through its invisible meshes. ”

“ The beautiful fruit garden would naturally lead to the orchard, a place that is not so often included in the pleasure-ground as it deserves. For what is more lovely than the bloom of orchard-trees in April and May, with the grass below in its strong, young growth; in itself a garden of Cowslips and Daffodils. In an old orchard how pictorial are the lines of the low-leaning old Apple-trunks and the swing and poise of their upper branches, best seen in winter when their graceful movement of line and wonderful sense of balance can be fully appreciated. ”

“ The soil on which an orchard is to be planted should also determine the use of many varieties, which are admirable only when well suited in their locality.
Regard is to be had to climate, since some of the finest fruits in one latitude entirely betray our expectations in another. The hardiness and health of different varieties ought to be more an object of attention than hitherto. As in building, so in planting an orchard, a mistake lasts for a century, and a bad tree in a good orchard is like bad timber in good mansion. ”

“ Plantains, too, spread their green succulent leaves—sunshades of nature’s own contriving—to protect the tender growths that love to live beneath them. Every tree seemed strangling in the coils of trailing vines and climbers; real ropes, pendents, and streamers of brilliant blossoms, fit resting-places for the birds and butterflies, themselves like living flowers. Wondrous19 orchids, grotesque in form and colouring, grew everywhere, springing alike from the living and the dead; for amidst this flood of vegetable life, decay and beauty, like twin sisters, walk hand-in-hand. ”

“ There is the same profusion of orchard and garden, the same all pervading presence of cattle and teams.... The clear streams, perpetually industrious in their loving care of lowland and meadow and orchard, and so cheery, too, in their perpetual work, are a type of the men and women themselves; the placid cornfields, lying in bright levels about the houses, are not more tranquil than the lives of the people; the tree-crowded orchards and stack-filled yards are eloquent of universal plenty ”

“ The sky is so blue and the apple blossoms so sweet. The wind and I have been here alone together and the wind is a good companion, but still I am glad to see you. It is an evening on which it is good to be alive and to wander in an orchard that is fine and white. ”

“ I cultivate my orchard to corn and garden-truck; cultivate four or five times during a season, the more the better; I use a disc; believe an orchard should always be cultivated. I cease cropping after six or seven years, and plant nothing in a bearing orchard. Windbreaks are essential; would make them of two rows of mulberries. For rabbits I use wrappers of wood veneer. I prune to shape the tree and to get rid of all surplus wood, and think it beneficial. I do not thin my fruit on the trees; the insects and wind do it for me. I do not pasture my orchard. ”

“ Let every tree in every garden own The red-streak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit With gold irradiate, and vermilion spires, Tempting, not fatal, as the birth of that Primeval interdicted plant, that won Fond Eve, in hapless hour, to taste and die."
A quaint old Englishman, writing about orchards, quotes the proverb: "It will beggar a doctor to live where orchards thrive." ”

“ Part I—Fruits and Seeds IN THE ORCHARD Is there a nicer place in which to play than an old apple orchard? Once under those favorite trees whose branches sweep the ground, you are quite shut off from the great, troublesome, outside world. And how happy and safe you feel in that green world of your own!—a world just made for children, a world of grass and leaves and birds and flowers, where lessons and grown-up people alike have no part. ”

“ Is there any part of a garden that is more beautiful than the orchard? At every season it is lovely. I cannot understand how it is that the place for fruitgrowing is in so many gardens kept away from what is called the ornamental part. I cannot understand how it has come about that flowering shrubs are welcomed and flowering apples discouraged in the most favoured situations. When a considerable number of the former have lost their blossoms, they are for the rest of the year as commonplace as is possible for a tree to be ”

“ But bogs and swamps and wet pastures are well worth exploring, and are justly dear to the botanical heart; for here, springing from a bed of soft black mud, may be seen the pink Arethusa, fair as a rose leaf, the rare Calypso, the singular trilliums, the graceful adder's-tongue, and several species of the remarkable Cypripediums, or lady's-slipper. The beautiful spring orchis, the only orchis blossoming early, of most delicate white and purple tints, flourishes in damp, rich woods, and the Cornus, or dogwood, lights up the shady nooks with level sheets of bloom. ”

“ Yet they are so exceptionally beautiful, as the fruit turns crimson and yellow and golden brown, that the trees become a glory of colour in fruit-gathering time.
After all there is excuse for ornament without specific use, if a thing be very, very ornamental—and the orchard certainly is that.
The sun reaches well under the trees, where the wild flowers and grasses make a softly waving sea of colour. Of course, I know the grass ought to be kept cut, so as to prevent undue nourishment being taken from the earth for the support of “mere weeds.” ”

“ Some orchids are particularly fond of the decaying leaf-stalks of palms or of tree-ferns. Some grow best over water, others must be elevated on lofty trees and well exposed to sun and air. The wonderful variety in the form, structure, and colour of the flowers of orchids is well known; but even our finest collections give an inadequate idea of the numbers of these plants that exist in the tropics, because a large proportion of them have quite inconspicuous flowers and are not worth cultivation. ”

“ The owners of this tract allow that the soil is excellent for fruit, but they say that it is so rocky that they have not patience to plough it, and that, together with the distance, is the reason why it is not cultivated. There are, or were recently, extensive orchards there standing without order. Nay, they spring up wild and bear well there in the midst of pines, birches, maples, and oaks. I am often surprised to see rising amid these trees the rounded tops of apple-trees glowing with red or yellow fruit, in harmony with the autumnal tints of the forest. ”

“ Orchid-hunting has an irresistible attraction for every lover of Nature. Whether the secret of this fascination lies in the difficulties which beset the search for the rarer species, or whether it is the strange forms, sweet perfumes and tropical appearances of many of the flowers belonging to this eccentric family that inspire so vivid a delight in the breast of man it is hard to determine, but assuredly the traveller does experience a keen thrill of ecstacy on finding one of these uncanny plants closely hidden in some shady swamp, or deep-set amid the tall rank herbage of the hills. ”

“ The spider may have “spread her net abroad with cords” as usual, but there was no magician’s wand to touch it.
*****
The orchard ought to be very gay in the spring. Daffodils have been dropped in all over the turf, and a round patch dug round each Apple tree is to be filled with yellow Wallflowers. This is an experiment, and I do not feel sure that I shall like the flowers so well as the trees simply growing out of the grass. A change, however, is always pleasant; though, perhaps, one might hardly care to lay out the garden differently every year, as the Chinese are said to do. ”

“ APPLE TREES IN THE COUNTY OF DUNDAS. BY JOHN CROIL, AULTSVILLE. The following suggestions by one of the Directors of the Fruit Growers’ Association, are taken from the Morrisburg Courier, and deserve careful attention from all fruit growers who have to contend with a climate similarly severe:
To any one of common observation, I think it must be evident that the cultivation of the orchard has not been a success among us. Old orchards, with few exceptions, are comparatively worthless, and their place is not being well supplied. ”

“ Grove, the owner of the orchard, came up with a knife in his hand and began cutting off small branches of apple--blossoms. "I like to see folks enjoy things."
"I hope you don't mind our trespassing on your grounds?" said Miss Harson. "I can engage that my little friends will do no injury, and I particularly wished them to see your beautiful orchard in bloom; it is almost equal to a field of roses." ”

“ In fact, it is very difficult to extract good conversation from any kind of human encyclopedia, ornithological or other.
Everywhere the cherry trees and pear are snowed over with white, but the apple blossoms are unopened, turning to a deep rose amid the pale-green leaves. The orchards are nearly human in their individuality, whether they form a little battalion of old men, sturdy and gnarled and steadfast, or a band of little budding baby trees toddling up a hill. ”

“ The Gardner must cleanse his soile of all other trees: but fruit-trees aforesaid Chapter 2 for which it is ordained, and I would especially name Oakes, Elmes, Ashes, and such other great wood, but that I doubt it should be taken as an admission of lesser trees: for I admit of nothing to grow in mine Orchard but fruit and flowers. If sap can hardly be good to feed our fruit-trees, why should we allow of any other, especially those, that will becom their Masters, & wrong them in their liuelyhood. ”

“ From that day I became a hunter of orchids and a haunter of far-away forests and lonely marshlands and unvisited hill-tops and mountain-sides. Wherever the lovely hid-folk dwell, there go I. They are strange flowers, these orchids. When first they were made out of sunshine, mist, and dew, every color was granted them save one. They may wear snow-white, rose-red, pearl and gold, green and white, purple and gold, ivory and rose, yellow, gold and brown, every shade of crimson and pink. ”

“ It is difficult to characterize a literary evolution in the hour when the fruits are still uncertain and the very blossoming in the orchard unconsummated. Precocious trees, slow-developing and dubious trees which one would not care, however, to call sterile: the orchard is very diverse and rich, too rich. The thickness of the leaves brings shadow, and the shadow discolors the flowers and dulls the hues of the fruit. ”

“ At xviilength a change takes place, rain falls abundantly, and the plains, on which but lately not a blade of herbage was to be seen, and over which the stillness of desolation reigned, become green with luxuriant vegetation. Orchideæ and thousands of flowers of the loveliest hues are profusely spread around, as if nature rejoiced in her renovation, and the grain springing up vigorously gives promise of an abundant harvest. ”

“ And what is an orchid? How are we to know that this blossom which we plucked is an orchid? The average reader will exclaim, "Because it is an air-plant"—the essential requisite, it would seem, in the popular mind. Of over 3000 known species of orchids, it is true a great majority are air-plants, or epiphytes—growing upon trees and other plants, obtaining their sustenance from the air, and not truly parasitic; but of the fifty-odd native species of the northeastern United States, not one is of this character, all growing in the ground, like other plants. ”

“ The cherries and plummes being ripe in the hot time of Summer, and the rest standing longer, are not so soone shaken as your better fruit: neither if they suffer losse, is your losse so great. Besides that, your fences and ditches will deuoure some of your fruit growing in or neere your hedges. And seeing the continuance of all these (except Nuts) is small, the care of them ought to be the lesse. And make no doubt but the fences of a large Orchard will containe a sufficient number of such kind of Fruit trees in the whole compasse. ”

“ Me thinks hitherto we haue but a bare Orchard for fruit, and but halfe good, so long as it wants those comely Ornaments, that should giue beauty to all our labours, and make much for the honest delight of the owner and his friends. ”