112 The Garden. 



The best mamire for fruit-trees in general is composed of 

 about equal parts of meadow mud, muck, or peaty earth, and 

 common stable manure. A small quantity of wood-ashes, say 

 four bushels to a cart-load of manure, and charcoal-dust in 

 about the same ratio, may be intermixed with this composition 

 to great advantage. This manure should be prepared and well 

 worked over several months before using. Half a peck of 

 bone-dust and a little lime, well mixed with the soil when set- 

 ting the tree, or from a peck to a bushel of old broken bones, 

 put into the bottom of the hole before setting, will be of great 

 benefit for years. The general manuring of a fruit garden 

 should be performed in autumn ; and the holes for setting out 

 the trees in the spring may be dug and filled with compost and 

 earth at the same time with decided advantage. Eotted chips 

 make an excellent manure for fruit-trees, and may be applied 

 either in the holes or as a top-dressing. 



Having set out your trees properly in well-prepared ground, 

 the work is rightly legun — that is all. If you stop here, you 

 might as well have never commenced — nay, better ; for in that 

 case you would have saved the cost of the trees and the labor 

 of preparing the soil. 



After your trees are planted, it is absolutely essential that 

 the ground around them shall de Jcept loose and mellow hy culti- 

 vation. Cultivate potatoes or some other low-growing crop 

 between the rows of trees, keeping an area of more than the 

 diameter of the head around each tree clear from both the 

 crop and the weeds. So far as the tree's roots extend, the 

 ground belongs to them, but it must be kept well stirred. 



Newly transplanted trees sometimes, especially if the season 

 be uncommonly dry, require watering; but a little water 

 poured on the surface never reaches the roots, and, by causing 

 the ground to bake, does more harm than good. To produce 

 the desired result, take off a few inches of the surface above 

 the roots, apply the w^ater, and then replace the earth. 



Mulching is exceedingly beneficial to young fruit-trees. A 

 sufficient quantity of straw, litter, leaves, or tan-bark applied 



