The Planting of the Fruit-Farm 8i 



of earth to counterbalance the violence of the 

 wind. 



Subsoiling does not always correct the evil of 

 an impervious stratiun, for the earth soon settles 

 back to its primitive condition. After the orchard 

 is once planted, subsoiling cannot be done, unless 

 possibly in the case of dwarf pears, whose roots 

 tend to cluster rather than to spread laterally. 

 But to subsoil a grown orchard of apple, cherry, 

 peach, or prune would be fatal to thousands of roots 

 and doubtless kill the trees. For siu-face crops, 

 as strawberries, grain, truck, and even raspberries, 

 subsoiling is often a help. Far better is it to drain 

 the land by tiling, as explained above. The su- 

 preme purpose of subsoiling and tiling is to give 

 a permanent outlet for superfluous water. The 

 subsoil is commonly said to contain ingredients 

 poisonous to plant-roots, which means that stag- 

 nant water kills the kind of vegetation attempted 

 by the fruit-grower. It cannot be too well under- 

 stood that fruit-stock will not grow in standing 

 water, hence the necessity of drainage. The tile- 

 drain is worth more than the subsoil plow; both 

 may be necessary in preparing the land for the new 

 orchard. 



Having marked out the land for orchard or 

 vineyard, you dig the holes. Some advocate 

 digging with a stick of dynamite, but the thought- 

 ful man knows that if land is so hard and rocky 

 that a hole in the ground can be made only with 

 dynamite, the roots of the tree will be limited by 



