i379-] SOIL FOR FRUIT-TREES, ROSES, ETC. 37 



hankering after the finer kinds of Plums, Pears, and even Peaches, 

 when the crops of the hardier Apples, &c, are precarious from an 

 unfavourable climate. This by the way, however, merely as a warn- 

 ing to beginners. 



Generally speaking, fruit-trees, Roses, &c, which are greatly bene- 

 fited by lifting and replanting in fresh soil, have been growing in soil 

 that is too rich. Excessive richness has a tendency to cause an over- 

 exuberant growth ; and when this occurs in a district not particularly 

 favoured by sunshine, and where heavy rains prevail, the evil is 

 aggravated. It is much more easy to cause unfruitfulness in fruit-trees 

 and a scarcity of flowers on flowering-plants by manure in a cloudy 

 climate than in a sunny one, and hence we ought to take this into 

 our calculations. For successful fruit-tree cultivation in a cloudy 

 wet climate, a hale loam on a dry bottom is an almost imperative 

 necessity : a heavily - manured soil in such a climate will give 

 great crops of wood, — while the same soil in a dry sunny climate 

 will produce results diametrically opposite. Still, speaking gener- 

 ally, heavily-manured soils are to be avoided. But with wall and 

 other trees in kitchen-gardens, it is impracticable to give the trees 

 all the root-run that they require entirely to themselves. Vegetables 

 should occupy the borders, and to grow these well quantities of manure 

 have to be regularly added which very soon convert the border into a 

 state unfavourable to fruitfulness in the trees. It would be to little 

 purpose to say that for all this there were no remedy. But there is a 

 remedy, and that is lifting and replanting, at the same time giving 

 an addition of fresh soil to the tree-roots to run in. Few people who 

 have not seen this done are aware of the effect on the trees : they 

 become transformed into a condition of productiveness, whereas 

 before they were the opposite. The difficulty is to get fresh loam. 

 To many this may be easy enough; to the majority, we are afraid, 

 it is an impossibility. And doubtless there are many who would 

 have no difficulty about getting the loam, who are glad to leave 

 the trees alone for want of labour-power ; for it is a painful fact that 

 many gardens are only half cultivated through want of strength. 

 But where there is strength enough but no fresh soil, it is almost 

 always of benefit to lift and replant over-luxuriant trees, using the 

 best and cleanest soil at hand ; for in numberless instances it is 

 through overfeeding that barrenness is produced. It is not that the 

 soil is exhausted, but it is because it affords too much. 



In rich adhesive soils the roots of trees run out into great quill-like 

 suckers-up of moisture and gaseous food, producing growth which 

 the climate cannot ripen. This is more especially the case if 

 the subsoil is wet and the roots are deep. We do not know 



