50 How THE FARM PAYS. 



Of course, this rule of treading in or firming seeds after sowing 

 must not be blindly followed. Very early in spring or late in fall, 

 when the soil is damp and there is no danger from heated, dry air, 

 there is no necessity for doing so. 



Now, if firming the soil around seed, to protect it from the influence 

 of a dry and hot atmosphere, is a necessity, it is obvious that it is more 

 so in the case of plants whose rootlets are even more sensitive to such 

 influence than the dormant seed. 



Experienced professional horticulturists, however, are less likely to 

 neglect this than to neglect in the case of seeds, for the damage from 

 such neglect is easier to be seen, and hence better understood by the 

 practical nurseryman ; but with the inexperienced amateur the case 

 is different. When he receives his package of trees or plants from the 

 nurseryman, he handles them as if they were glass, every broken twig 

 or root calls forth a complaint, and he proceeds to plant them, gingerly 

 straightening out each root and sifting the soil around them, but 

 he would no more stamp down that soil than he would stamp on the 

 soil of his mother's grave. So the plant, in nine cases out of ten, is 

 left loose and waggling; the dry air penetrates through the soil to its 

 roots; the winds shake it; it shrivels up and fails to grow; and then 

 come the anathemas on the head of the unfortunate nurseryman, who 

 is charged with selling him dead trees or plants. 



About a month ago I sent a package of a dozen roses by mail to a 

 lady in Savannah. She wrote me a woful story last week, saying 

 that, though the roses had arrived seemingly all right, they had all 

 died but one, and what was very singular, she said, the one that lived 

 was the one that Mr. Jones had stepped on, and which she had thought 

 sure was crushed to death, lor Mr. Jones .weighs 200 Ibs. Now, 

 though I do not advise any gentleman of 200 Ibs. putting his brogan 

 on the top of a tender rose plant, as a practice conducive to its health, 

 yet, if Mrs. Jones could have allowed her weighty lord to press the 

 soil against the root of each of her dozen roses, I much doubt if she 

 would now have to mourn their loss. 



It has often been a wonder to many of us, who have been workers 

 in the soil for a generation, how some of the simplest methods of cul- 

 ture have not been practiced until we were nearly done with life's work. 



There are few of us but have had such experience; personally, I 

 must say that I never pass through a year but I am confounded to 

 find that some operation can not only be quicker done, but better 

 done, than we have been in the habit of doing it. 



These improvements loom up from various causes, but mainly from 

 suggestions thrown out by our employees in charge of special de- 

 partments, a system which we do all in our power to encourage. 



