CHAPTER VIII. 



CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 



THE cultivator, having transplanted his trees in the best 

 manner, and secured them from disaster by every means 

 which skill can devise, has a still more important task yet 

 to perform, the cultivation of the soil. 



It is more important, because it is not commenced and 

 finished in a day, but needs constant attention for years ; 

 and in ordinary practice it receives greater neglect. For, 

 of the thousands of trees which are every year transplanted 

 in all parts of the country, the assertion may be made with 

 safety, that more are lost from neglected after-culture^ than 

 from all other causes put together. 



To purchase and set out fine fruit trees of rare sorts, in 

 a baked and hardened soil, whose entire moisture and 

 fertility are consumed by a crop of weeds and grass, might 

 very aptly and without exaggeration be compared to the 

 purchase of a fine horse, and then perpetually to exclude 

 him from food and drink. 



Here is the great and fatal error with a large portion who 

 attempt the cultivation of fruit. We may not incorrectly 

 divide these into three classes : 



1. Those who, having procured their trees, destroy them 

 at once by drying them in the sun or wind, or freezing them 

 in the cold, before setting out. 



2. Those who destroy them by crowding the roots into 

 small holes cut out of a sod, where, if they live, they main- 

 tain a stunted and feeble existence, like the half-starved 

 cattle of a neglectful farmer. 



3. Others set them out well, and then consider their 

 labors as having closed. They are subsequently suffered to 

 become choked with grass, weeds, or crops of grain some 

 live and linger, others die under the hardship ; or else are 

 demolished by cattle, or broken down by the team which 

 cultivates the ground. 



