336 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



bear. After that apply potash freely, also, to give health to 

 the trees, as well as color and quality to the fruit. And here 

 come into play the surface-roots of trees, between which and 

 the size as well as quality of the fruit there is a most intimate 

 relation. I am confident that the well known deficiency of 

 quality in nearly all California fruit is due entirely to the fact 

 that, under their system of cultivation, no surface roots are 

 ever allowed to form. In the east it is well known that dry 

 seasons make good shipping, high-flavored fruit, and yet 

 there, where they have perfection in climate and water under 

 control, we find poor quality. Their method is to keep the 

 plow and cultivator going practically the whole growing sea- 

 son, compelling the trees to form what may be called surface 

 roots six inches below the ground. This is entirely artificial 

 and contrary to nature, for while all young trees root primarily 

 as deep as they can, a bearing tree has sense enough to know 

 that its cookshop is on the surface, where air, heat and rain 

 prepare its food, and having something to do besides grow, it 

 avails itself of every means to obtain that food. If allowed, 

 it quickly fills the whole surface with its hungry little feeders. 

 Cut them as often as you will, if given the slightest chance 

 back they come again. There is where the value of a firm, 

 closely mowed surface comes in. The sod protects these 

 tender rootlets from the summer heat and cold of winter, and 

 yet if kept mowed, being allowed no evaporating surface, 

 takes but little food and moisture from them, nor will it hold 

 surplus water after excessive rains, like loose soil, to scald 

 .and drown them out. 



And here I would call particular attention to the fact that 

 the sod is not really the compact ground it appears to be, as 

 is evidenced by the fact that after heavy rains the water is 

 much more rapidly absorbed by grass land than clean com- 

 pacted ground. The pores, so to speak, of such are run 

 together and somewhat closed, but the grass roots keep the 

 soil lighter, and by their decay from time to time afford 

 minute natural avenues of absorption, which allow the water 

 to find its way into and through the soil. 



Adopt, then, the lawn system for a pear tree now grow- 



