36 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



The almost universal practice is to plow at least once a 

 year, and then cultivate more or less deeply until midsummer. 

 While the trees are young and vigorous, and for the first few 

 years of bearing, all such orchards give their best results; but 

 when once in full bearing, no surface-rooted trees, especially 

 the peach, such as I am now describing, can stand the drain 

 of a continual cutting of their roots and live long, or give 

 fruit of marketable size unless heavily fertilized every year, 

 and at least four-fifths of the crop removed by hand, early in 

 the season. This is the system hitherto adopted by the suc- 

 cessful peach grower, Mr. Hale, with his orchards grown from 

 long-rooted trees, and by which method he manages to make 

 them profitable for ten or twelve years. Having never tested 

 it myself on close root-pruned trees, I am very curious to see 

 how it is going to work on that immense orchard in Georgia, 

 planted after my method and on ground hitherto skimmed 

 over a few inches deep for corn and cotton, according to the 

 usual southern style. For the benefit of those who never 

 read of it, I will say that Mr. Hale, when the cotton was off, 

 without any hole digging or additional plowing, simply in- 

 serted a spade about six inches deep where the trees were to 

 stand, and, pushing the handle back just far enough to allow 

 of the little one-inch rooted trees being stuck down behind it, 

 withdrew the spade and pressed the soil back firmly with the 

 foot. Of course, the short roots must have rested flat on the 

 so-called hard-pan or subsoil, that from creation's dawn was 

 never broken. From what I have read, he is now subsoiling 

 the middles, intends to plow every winter, and cultivate clean 

 until midsummer, apply free dressings of bone and potash 

 annually, and thin out the fruit severely by hand. I will 

 watch the results with a great deal of interest. Ground be- 

 comes boggy, after excessive rains, only just so deep as it has 

 been stirred, and it will become so after such rains for many 

 years, thus greatly increasing the danger of injury to the 

 roots as the trees on subsoiled ground get older, as well as 

 rendering it almost impossible to drive wagons over it, if a 

 prolonged wet spell should occur when the fruit is ripe. 



But to proceed with the surface roots of fruit trees, the 



