COUNTRY LIFE
The Reviving Orchard The traveller in Herefordshire, that lovely and still unspoilt county, will see among other refreshing sights a heartening revival of the orchard. Many hundreds of acres must have been planted with apple trees and pear trees within the last few years and a good many old orchards refurbished. They are all planted with standard trees set at full distance and so leaving plenty of light and space for the grass, that is another glory of the county. The fruit is exclusively of the cider apple and perry pear ; and indeed between the modern orchard, say of Cox's Orange, which grows best on a bush tree or a cordon, and a cider orchard there is very little resemblance : and in scenic effect the cider orchard has the advantage. If you walk the county you still come. upon numbers of orchards so perished that only a mouldering apple tree or two remains, for the industry of cider making in Hereford was in its heyday more, than a century ago ; but that day returns. Farmers are dis- covering that the crop pays regular dividends and that the land need not lie idle till the trees come into full bearing.
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