3 o THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



turn the tables on our competitive kinsmen over the sea, enabling us to export instead 

 of import some of our hardy fruits. Moor earth is a kind of peat formed over poor 

 soils, and often hard rock. It is usually too thin for fruit trees, but where there is a 

 good depth of earth over the pan or underlying rock the different fruits succeed well, 

 and when the under-stratum is limestone hazel nuts and filberts bear exceedingly well. 



Subsoil is the layer of earth immediately below the ameliorated portion, not usually 

 interfered with in preparing the ground for crops. In spade husbandry the subsoil may 

 be taken at twelve inches from the surface downwards ; in ordinary tillage the soil is not 

 stirred deeper with the plough than six inches. There is a great difference, therefore, 

 in soils operated on by spade and plough, and there is also a difference in subsoils. 

 Some vary little in composition from the surface soil, yet there is usually a great distinc- 

 tion between them in cultural value. Worked soil contains a larger proportion of 

 organic matter and soluble food for plants, and though liable to impoverishment through 

 cropping, is benefited by the roots and other parts remaining after the crop is taken ; these 

 decaying, the roots of fruit trees not excepted, and in combination with applied manures, 

 give the surface soil an immense advantage over the subsoil. Surface soil is altered in 

 texture by crops, made more open by the roots that traverse it, and its friableness 

 increased by tillage. This admits of the free access of the great solvents, air and rain ; 

 speedy decomposition of organic matter, or its formation, ensuing, some of the soluble 

 matter passing down to the subsoil, and there remaining in proportion to its retentive 

 power. Some soils are not only sterile before they are exposed to the air, but may be 

 poisonous until the deleterious substances in the subsoil have been changed by the 

 application of lime, where the soil is impregnated with the salts or oxides of iron. 



Improving Soils Draining. The first consideration in the improvement of soils is 

 draining, and its necessity will be best indicated by pointing out evils resulting from its 

 absence, also by referring to its beneficial effects. One of the great objects of all tillage 

 is the reduction of the soil to a finely divided state, through every part of which the fila- 

 mentary roots of plants may spread to obtain due supplies of moisture and air, and those 

 substances of which plants are in part composed. On the due preparation of the nutrient 

 elements in the soil depend the health and productiveness of all fruit trees. Working 

 heavy soil when wet has the effect of rendering it stiffer and closer ; therefore instead of 

 being made porous it is converted when dry into an impervious mass, in which plants find 

 at the best scant means of sustenance. Water accumulating in soil must stagnate and air 

 be excluded. Decayed matter in water-logged soils instead of having a beneficial has 



