“Malo, I would rather be, Malo, in an apple-tree, Malo, than a bad boy, Malo, in adversity.”

The fruit was an important item on the Aldington Manor Farm, and when later I bought an adjoining farm of seventy acres with orcharding, and had planted nine acres of plum trees, my total fruit area amounted to about thirty acres.  There was a saying in the neighbourhood which pleased me greatly, that “it was always harvest at Aldington”; it was not so much intended to signify that there was always something coming in, as to convey an impression of the constant activity and employment of labour that continued throughout the seasons without intermission, though it was true that with the diversity of my crops and stock, there was a more or less continuous return.  I had a shock when an old friend in a neighbouring village spoke of me as a “pomologist,” the title seemed much too distinguished, and personally I have never claimed the right to anything better than the rather pretty old title of “orchardist.”

The position of an orchard is of the utmost importance; shelter is necessary, but it must be above the ordinary spring frost level of the district.  I should say that no orchard should be less than 150 feet above sea-level, to be fairly safe, and 200 feet would in nearly any ordinary spring be quite secure against frost.  The climate has a remarkable effect upon the colour of apples, and colour is one of the most valuable of market properties, for the ordinary town buyer is a poor judge of the merits of apples and prefers colour and size to most other considerations.  Here in the south of England seven miles from the sea, in a dry and sunny climate, all apples develop a much more brilliant colour than in the moist climate of the Vale of Evesham.

I fear that very few planters of fruit trees think of following the routine which Virgil describes in his second Georgic, as practised by the careful orchardist, when transplanting.  Dryden’s translation is as follows: 

     “Some peasants, not t’ omit the nicest care,
     Of the same soil their nursery prepare
     With that of their plantation; lest the tree,
     Translated should not with the soil agree. 
     Beside, to plant it as it was, they mark
     The heav’ns four quarters on the tender bark,
     And to the north or south restore the side,
     Which at their birth did heat or cold abide: 
     So strong is custom; such effects can use
     In tender souls of pliant plants produce.”

Virgil was born in the year 70 B.C., and died, age 51, in 19 B.C., so that over nineteen centuries have elapsed since these words were written; as he was an excellent farmer, he would not have mentioned the practice unless he considered the advice sound.  It is quite possible that the vertical cracking of the bark on one side of a young transplanted tree may be due to a change from the cool north aspect to the heat of the south.  At any rate the experiment is well worth trying, and nurserymen would not find it much trouble to run a chalk line down the south side of each tree, when lifting them, as a guide for the purchaser.