78 SOIL FOR WALL-FRUIT. 



site of your trees, and occasion no small loss both to 

 yourself and them. Wherefore, the following ob- 

 servations are humbly submitted to your attention, 

 that you may profit by the writer's loss, or purchase 

 at a cheap rate the lessons he has learned. 



The first thing is the soil ; and you must either 

 be at the expence of making the soil fit for the tree 

 that you desire, or be content to want that tree for 

 which the soil has no fitness. It is a necessary 

 principle of all vegetable growth, that the expan- 

 sion of roots, including depth as well as breadth, 

 must bear a due proportion to that of the branches. 

 If your wall is only 6 feet high, your fruit border 

 must be trenched at least 2 feet deep; if 8, 2J feet; 

 if 10, 3 feet. If the subsoil be either pure gravel 

 or hard till, you can have no satisfaction with less 

 trenching; but if the subsoil be alluvial, or consist 

 of the debris of a hillside, showing good soil, though 

 plentifully mingled with large stones, the trees, 

 with less of your provision, will forage for them- 

 selves. But early canker, and that even of the 

 young shoots, will certainly ensue wherever pure 

 gravel or indurated clay meets the feed ng fibres 

 within 18 inches of the surface. If, then, you 

 choose to content yourself with such a depth, plant 

 nothing but paradise stocks, from which you may 

 have good fruit for a few years; but rather take 

 down your wall than show a summer codling -upon 

 it a sort of tree that will do well enough in a com- 

 mon hedge. The most that can be made of a low 

 wall and slender depth of soil is to set the paradise 



