On the whole, I deem it a misfortune that our Northern States were so admirably adapted to the Apple and kindred fruit-trees that our pioneer forefathers had little more to do than bury the seeds in the ground and wait a few years for the resulting fruit. The soil, formed of decayed trees and their foliage, thickly covered with the ashes of the primitive forest, was as genial as soil could be; while the remaining woods, which still covered seven-eighths of the country, shut out or softened the cold winds of Winter and Spring, rendering it less difficult, a century ago, to grow fine peaches in southern New-Hampshire than it now is in southern New-York. Devastating insects were precluded by those great, dense woods from diffusing themselves from orchard to orchard as they now do. Snows fell more heavily and lay longer then than now, protecting the roots from heavy frosts, and keeping back buds and blossoms in Spring, to the signal advantage of the husbandman. I estimate that my apple-trees would bear at least one-third more fruit if I could retard their blossoming a fortnight, so as to avoid the cold rains and cutting winds, often succeeded by frosts, which are apt to pay their unwelcome farewell visits just when my trees are in bloom or when the fruit is forming directly thereafter. Hence, I say to every one who shall hereafter set an orchard, Give it the northward slope of a hill if that be possible. Other things being equal, the orchard which blossoms latest will, in a series of years, yield most fruit, and will be most likely to bear when the Apple-crop of your vicinity proves a failure. I do not recommend storing ice to plant or bury under the trees in April, for that involves too much labor and expense; yet I have no doubt that even that has been and sometimes might be done with profit. In the average, however, I judge that it would not pay.
In locating and setting an orchard, the very first consideration is thorough drainage. Nothing short of a destructive fire can be more injurious to an apple-tree than compelling it to stand throughout Winter and Spring in sour, stagnant water. Barrenness, dead branches, and premature general decay, are the natural and righteous consequences of such crying abuse. There are many reasons for choosing sloping or broken ground for an apple-orchard, whereof comparative exemption from frost and natural facility of drainage are the most obvious. A level field, thoroughly undrained to-day, may, through neglect and the mischiefs wrought by burrowing animals, have become little better than a morass thirty years hence; but an orchard set on a tolerably steep hillside is reasonably secure against wet feet to the close of its natural life.