CULTIVATION. 113 



intimate relation between which and the fruit itself has been 

 greatly overlooked. Every careful observer must have noticed 

 that in orchards, even from long-rooted trees, while young 

 and growing, the fine, delicate little feeding roots do not hunt 

 the immediate surface like they do when the trees begin to 

 bear. While the trees have nothing to do but to grow, these 

 roots seem content to forage around six inches or more under 

 the surface, and for this reason, plowing and deep cultivation 

 during that period seems to do no harm, though cultivation 

 deeper than necessary for killing grass and weeds is of no 

 actual benefit to the root-pruned trees, nor in fact to any 

 other, and may, on ground not perfectly drained, as noted 

 above, do harm, after excessive rains. I have often wondered 

 just what the relation was between each leaf and fruit and the 

 root, and whether the former were not dependent to a certain 

 extent on the good offices of certain individual roots on the 

 surface. That in a general way the perfect development of 

 the fruit does depend largely on these surface roots can easily 

 be shown, by selecting a row of trees, for instance, in an 

 apple orchard that has stood several years in sod. Plow one 

 row five or six inches deep in spring, and cultivate and mow 

 the others, never letting the grass get over four inches high. 

 Fertilize neither, and unless apple trees act differently from 

 peach and pear trees here, the fruit on the mowed land will 

 be much the finest. As a further test, apply equal quantities 

 of a good fertilizer to certain trees on the sod and cultivated 

 ground, and the difference in favor of the sod will be surpris- 

 ing. But, returning to the exact relation between the leaves 

 and roots, the diagram on page 114 clearly shows that to a 

 certain extent and in a general way there is such a correspond- 

 ing relation. The diagram represents a bed or section in the 

 Galveston City Park, through which I pass every day on my 

 way down town. Having no particular use for the scrapings 

 from the paved streets, the superintendent concluded to fertil- 

 ize as well as raise the grade of the whole park about one 

 foot. This bed was selected as the starting point, and load 

 after load, largely composed of pulverized horse manure, was 

 dumped and evenly spread about one foot deep and nicely 

 8 HORT. 



