1913] on Investigations at the Woburn Fruit Farm G53 



made: but the ruiighly plantLul trees refused to behave badly, and 

 flourished so nuich more than their neighbours that they often 

 showed two or three times more growth than these did. The prin- 

 cipal cause of this was eventually traced to the fact that the soil 

 round these trees had been heavily rammed at the planting, instead 

 of being shaken over the roots, and merely pressed down. When 

 we consider that the welfare of the transplanted tree depends on its 

 sending out new rootlets from the old roots, it is evident that any- 

 thing which brings the soil into intimate contact with these roots 

 will be beneficial, and ramming the soil down, especially if it is in a 

 wet condition at the time, will do this more effectually than could 

 ever be done by the gentler method of planting. These somewhat 

 surprising results, therefore, receive a simple explanation, and it is 

 easy to satisfy ourselves, by lifting the trees at the end of a year 

 that the rammed ones have actually formed more new roots than 

 the carefully planted ones. [Slide shown.] Such novel methods of 

 planting naturally excited the wrath of horticulturists, who, as a 

 body, are inclined to carry the veneration for traditional procedure 

 to excess, and we were careful to obtain overwhelming evidence as 

 to the facts before publishing our results. Some seventy sets of 

 experiments were made, in which about 2000 trees were used ; the 

 soils in which the trees were planted being of every variety, and 

 situated in eight different counties. Naturally, the results varied, 

 but the average of them showed that ramming might be expected to 

 increase the growth of the tree by nearly 50 per cent, during the 

 first or first two years, at any rate in heavy or fairly heavy soils. 

 [Slide shown.] In a light sandy soil, it naturally had no effect, 

 for the obvious reason that, by the time the tree started into 

 growth, any consolidation of the soil caused by the ramming would 

 have disappeared. 



Naturally, ramming a heavy soil till it becomes puddled is not 

 good for the soil, as it prevents proper aeration, and if the whole 

 ground were rammed the results would, doubtless, be disastrous. 

 But it is only the ball of earth round the roots which is consolidated 

 in this way, and the roots soon make their way out into the looser 

 soil beyond. In one case only were the results of ramming very bad, 

 and that was in the London clay, where the absence of aeration 

 caused sulphuretted hydrogen to be developed. In other clay soils, 

 no such results ensued (the Woljurn farm itself is on the Oxford 

 clay) ; but the adverse influence of the consolidation of the soil was 

 generally manifested by the fact that the rammed trees lagged behind 

 the unrammed ones during the first half, or sometimes the whole of 

 the first season after planting, not asserting their superiority till the 

 roots had extended beyond the ball of consolidated earth round them. 

 [Slide shown.] 



Besides producing increased growth and vigour, ramming presents 



