AMERICAN GARDENER. 11 



a little in the Chapter on Flowers. From a 

 Kitehen-Garden all large trees ought to be kept at 

 a distance of thirty or forty yards. For the shade 

 of them is injurious, and their roots a great deal 

 more injurious, to every plant growing within the 

 influence of those roots. It is a common but very- 

 erroneous notion, in England, that the trees, 

 which grow in the hedges that divide the fields, 

 do injury by their shade only. I had a field ot' 

 transplanted Ruta Baga, in the hedge on. the 

 North West side of which there were five large 

 spreading oak-trees, at some distance from each, 

 other. Opposite each of these trees, which could 

 not shade the Ruta Baga much, there was a piece 

 of the Ruta Baga, in nearly a semi-circular form, 

 in which the plants never grew to any size, 

 though those in all the rest of the field were so 

 fine as to draw people from a great distance to 

 look at them. One gentleman, who came out of 

 Sussex, and who had been a farmer all his life- 

 time, was struck with the sight of these semi- 

 circles ; and, looking over the hedge, into a field 

 of wheat, which had a ditch between it and the 

 hedge, and seeing that the wheat, though shaded 

 by the trees, was very little affected by them, he 

 discovered, that it was the roots and not the 

 branches that produced the mischief. The ditch^ 

 which had been for ages in the same place, had 

 prevented the roots of the trees from going into 

 the field where the wheat was growing. The 

 ground where the Ruta Baga was growing had 

 been well ploughed and manured; and the plants 

 had not been in the ground more than three 

 months ; yet, such was the power of the roots of 

 the trees, and so quickly did it operate, that it 



