DEEP PREPARATION WRONG. 107 



But suppose such an excessive rain had fallen at the North, 

 and the thermometer had dropped below zero, freezing this 

 one foot of slush and roots as solid as a rock ? Is there any 

 wonder that trees exposed to such conditions for a few years, 

 and, as a rule, allowed to overbear, should soon yield inferior 

 crops, and die young ? While the peach would surfer most, 

 no tree can stand such treatment uninjured. So much for 

 reason and experience against a deeply- stirred surface soil. 



Now, let us turn to nature. As I said before, she plants 

 her trees with neither tops or roots, on the surface of the 

 firm, unbroken soil, and whether it be an apple or an oak, in 

 the valleys or on the hills, she grows a tree unequalled by all 

 the care and skill of man. Who subsoiled and pulverized for 

 the giant red-woods of California, the towering pines of Ore- 

 gon and the South, the monster sycamores and cottonwoods 

 of the Middle States, or dug wide holes and spread out their 

 roots, carefully fingering in the top soil, for the grand old 

 hickories, walnuts, elms and oaks that once crowned New 

 England's rock-ribbed hills? True, these are forest trees; 

 but how about the old original Seckel pear, the old apple tree 

 that shaded Roger Williams' grave, and hundreds of ancient 

 seedlings, of both fruits, that gave bounteous yield to three 

 and four generations of the Pilgrims' sons ? So much for 

 nature's testimony in favor of a firm, unbroken soil. 



But while all those trees were seedlings, I claim that the 

 close root-pruned tree is far better than a seedling. The life 

 force of a seed, while capable, ultimately, of the grand devel- 

 opments I have named, is primarily very weak. Who would 

 suspect that the great Charter Oak lay wrapped in the tiny 

 acorn, which probably made scarcely a foot of growth the 

 first year, or that the embryo sycamores and cottonwoods 

 that tower in the river bottoms of the Middle States once 

 floated down, almost as light as the air itself, and the first 

 year made but a few inches of growth? And yet a close root- 

 pruned cottonwood tree or a cutting will, in this section, often 

 grow ten feet high the first year. The potentiality of life in 

 the root-pruned tree is many times greater than in the seed, 

 and it has the additional advantage of striking several deep 



