110 BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 



A surface-planted tree is placed in its natural ele- 

 ment, a well decomposed and rapidly changing soil. Its 

 roots get plenty of air, and if well mulched, are always 

 moist; they become like the body and branches of the 

 tree itself, accustomed to changes of temperature, and 

 in the fall ripen and harden off their icood almost in 

 the same way that a grape vine does its branches. But 

 still the roots of a well mulched tree are never so liable 

 to be affected by frost as even a deeply planted tree, 

 for you will frequently find in the forest, under a heavy 

 covering of leaves, in winter, that the frost has only 

 penetrated to the depth of two inches, when in exposed 

 ground the soil is frosted to the depth of four feet. 



A surface-planted tree, immediately fed with one or 

 two cart-loads of good loam, placed around the cut ends 

 of its roots, and well mulched, is in a much more favor- 

 able condition to live and thrive, than a tree plunged 

 deeply down into a cold, dank cistern of a hole, even if 

 supplied with abundance of manure, and all sorts of 

 special fertilizers. The surface-planted tree can and 

 will send out its roots far and wide in the adjacent sur- 

 face-soil ; but the deeply planted tree finds nothing con- 

 genial or inviting in the soil around its roots, even if 

 that soil be so well trenched or sub-soiled that it is able 

 to penetrate it. A very large proportion of all the fail- 

 ures which have been made in growing fruit trees, and 

 especially the pear, are to be attributed, in our opinion, 

 to deep planting and excessive manuriag. Nature 

 shows us plainly what to do: plant shallow, give all ma- 



