60 GENERAL ADVICE 



from the manure sometimes injure the crown 

 buds and the roots. 



This protection may also be given to established 

 plants, particularly to those which, like roses and 

 herbaceous plants, are expected to give a profusion 

 of bloom the following year. This mulch affords 

 not only winter protection, but is an efficient 

 means of fertilizing the land. A large part of 

 the plant -food materials have leached out of the 

 mulch by spring, and have become incorporated in 

 the soil, where the plant makes ready use of them. 

 Mulches also serve a most useful purpose in pre- 

 venting the ground from packing and baking from 

 the weight of snows and rains, and the cementing 

 action of too much water in the surface soil. In 

 the spring, the coarser parts of the mulch may be 

 removed, and the finer parts spaded or hoed into 

 the ground. 



Tender bushes and small trees may be wrapped 

 up with straw, hay, burlaps, or pieces of matting 

 or carpet. Even rather large trees, like bearing 

 peach trees, are often baled up in this way, or 

 sometimes with corn fodder, although the results 

 in the protection of fruit buds are not often very 

 satisfactory. It is important that no grain is left 

 in the baling material, else mice may be attracted 

 to it. It should be known, too, that the object in 

 tying up or baling plants is not so much to pro- 

 tect from direct cold as to mitigate the effects of 

 alternate freezing and thawing, and to protect 



