88 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



to express himself too strongly or with too much gravity. 

 It may seem to the ordinary observer that excessive 

 expense is demanded when twenty loads of rich mold are 

 recommended for filling a hole for a shade tree in many 

 parts of cities like New York. There are, however, 

 many regions where it would be profitable to dig the 

 holes for trees ten feet in diameter and four feet deep, 

 and there are very few places where it does not pay to 

 dig a large hole for a tree and fill it full of fresh mold, 

 and the same treatment is, of course, advisable for 

 shrubs, herbaceous plants, and vines. 



There is a sort of painstaking care that a good planter 

 exercises (and there are not as many good planters, by 

 any means, as there are professional gardeners), which 

 makes him fall on his knees and work the fresh mold 

 among and under all the fibres of the larger roots, and 

 then shake the trees sideways, and up and down, until 

 the spaces between and under the roots are thoroughly 

 filled with fine earth, the final process being the tramp- 

 ing or ramming the earth around the tree, layer after 

 layer. All this compression of the earth over and around 

 the roots tends directly to keep the air away and start 

 the growth with desirable quickness and vigor. 



In many kinds of soil it is profitable to prepare a spe- 

 cial system of drainage, and a convenient method of 

 watering each tree. For a succinct and clear review 

 of the subject of this thorough and specially successful 

 kind of tree planting, the author would refer the reader 

 to several recent reports made on this subject by what 

 in Paris would correspond with a bureau of planting, if 

 we had one, in the Department of Public Works in this 

 country. 



After the trees and shrubs have been planted, the 



