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 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 southwest 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.

* From second series of '- Walks and Talks of oil American Farmer in England".

Another important circumstance to be noticed, as distinguishing the apple districts, is in the nature of their soils. These are (band, however, varying otherwise, invariably to hare a large proportion of lime, and generally of potash, in their chemical composition. With reference to this I quote the observations of Mr. Frederic Falkner.*

"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. AH 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 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 frieffi-cient for the production of the fruit without the co-operation of (the alkaline bases.) The size and perhaps the flavor 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.G3 per cent, and 17.50 per cent, of phosphate of lime.

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 fanners 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 favorable 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 everywhere 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 lor 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 mu6t be furnished with a considerable amount of some sort of alkali, which requisite may be supplied by lime.