112 SELECTLN'G, PLANTTN'Gj AND CCLTIYATIOX. 



compacting, the trees on pear stock alternating with 

 the others, would be left two or three inches out 

 of the ground. 



CULTrV'ATION OF THE PEAK ORCKARD. 



A reputation for bad management, and perhaps a 

 residence in a lunatic asylum, could not be more readily 

 obtained by a fanner, than to persistently practice the 

 growing of weeds and grass in his potato and corn- 

 fields, seeding dowm to grass the garden whicli he had 

 just planted with vegetables, or turning his cattle to 

 graze in his ripening grain. 



Yet, scarcely one in a hundred farmers but per- 

 forms every one of these insane practices upon his 

 orchard and fruit grounds. Until within a very few 

 years, the orchard was quite as much relied upon for 

 pasturage and grain crops as the meadow and fallow. 

 Hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted in 

 ground cropj^ed year after year Avith corn or wheat, 

 that have made no more growth in five years than 

 might have been produced in two. Xothing could be 

 less economical, even where only profit was desired. 

 'No reason can be given why a field of corn and pota- 

 toes should be cultivated with plow and hoe, that 

 is not an equally powerful argument in favor of the 

 same treatment of young trees ; and there are many 

 reasons why the latter will not succeed with grass and 

 grain, when they would grow luxuriantly witli root 

 crops. One of tlie principal arguments in favor of the 

 latter practice may suggest others to tliinking observ- 

 ers. Vegetables growm for their roots derive the far 

 greater portion of their nutriment from the atmosphere. 



