24 TRANSPLANTING. 



the soil If the ■whole ground be made thus mellow and rich 

 before the trees are planted, they ■will live and make a good 

 growth the first season; hut if planted in hard soil, very often in 

 a sod, no wonder that many of them die, and that those which 

 live make a starved and sickly growth. Many persons, after 

 preparing the ground in this way, think they cannot afford to 

 lose so much labor just for an orchard, and so, as a matter of 

 economy, they sow wheat or rye or some other grain, and plant 

 their yoimg trees in the grain. This is, beyond question, a false 

 economy ; but, if it must be done, let no graiu grow within four 

 feet of any tree. The grain will absorb the rains and dews and 

 moisture that the young tree needs, and so rob the tree of its 

 necessary nourishment, for trees can take up nourishment only in 

 a liquid form. The writer was requested by a neighbor to 

 examine his young orchard, which, he said, seemed to be all 

 dying, and he was unable to account for it. The orchard had 

 been planted the year before, in good rich sod, which was well 

 drained, and had been made perfectly mellow, and the trees had 

 not only lived but made a very fine growth. But this year, since 

 the hot weather had set in, the leaves had begun to wilt and 

 wither, and some of them to turn yellow, and the yoimg shoots 

 to shrivel and dry up. On arriving at the orchard, the trees were 

 found standing in a field of most luxuriant rye, reaching, in many 

 places, quite into the branches of the trees. It was at once 

 recommended that the rye should be pulled up around the trees, 

 BO that there should be a circle of eight feet in diameter left clear 

 aroimd each tree, and that the rye so piilled up be spread on the 

 ground aroimd the trees as a mulch. This was done, and the 

 trouble was at once arrested ; many of the trees revived whoUy, 

 some lost only the ends of the young shoots that had become too 

 much wilted to survive, while a few of the trees had already 

 suffered so much that they were past all recovery. 



Another thing that must not be overlooked in the preparation 

 of the ground is drainage. Fruit trees cannot grow in water, and 

 care must be taken to draw off all stagnant watiCr not only from 



