56 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



Mr. Marshall, as follows : "Describe a circle aboiii 

 five or six feet diameter for the hole. If the ground 

 be in grass, remove the sward in shallow spits, plac- 

 ing the sods on one side of the hole ; the best of the 

 loose mould placed by itself on another side, and the 

 dead earth, from the bottom of the hole, in another 

 heap. The depth of the holes should be regulated by 

 the nature of the sub-soil. Where this is cold and re- 

 tentive, the holes should not be made much deeper 

 than the cultivated soil. To go lower, is to form a 

 receptacle for the water, which by standing among 

 the roots, is very injurious to the plants. On the 

 contrary, in a dry, light soil, the holes should be made 

 considerably deeper ; as well to obtain a degree of 

 coolness and moisture, as to be able to establish the 

 plants firmly in the soil.* In soils of a middle quality, 

 the hole should be of such depth, that when the sods 

 are thrown to the bottom of it, the plant will stand at 

 the same depth in the orchard as it did in the nurse- 

 ry. Each hole, therefore, should be of a depth adapt- 

 ed to the particular root planted in it. The holes 

 ought, however, for various reasons, to be made prev- 

 ious to the day of planting. If the season of planting 

 be spring, and the ground and the weather be dry, 

 the holes should be watered the evening befoie the- 

 day of planting, by throwing two or three pails full 

 of water into each ; a new but eligible practice. In 

 planting, the sods should be thrown to the bottom of 



* Agriculturalists are apprised of the fact that stones have a 

 tendency to keep the contig-uous earth moist and cool ; and that 

 when applied t;> the roots of fruit trees they produce benefic- 

 ial effects. The honourable A. Wells, Esq. of Dorchester, 

 found by experiment that those trees at the bottom of which 

 Le put a horse-cart load of small stones, when planted, great- 

 ly outstripped those which were planted without stones. The 

 growth of the former in six years being from 12 to 14 inch- 

 es in circumference one foot from the ground, while that of 

 the latter was nine inches in the same time. See page 63. 



