74 



Cultivation of the Soil. 



by drying them in the sun or wind, or freezing them in the cold, 

 before setting out. 



2. Those who destroy them by crowding the roots into small 

 holes cut out of a sod, where, if they live, they maintain a stunted 

 and feeble existence, like the half-starved cattle of a neglectful far- 

 mer. 



3. Others set them out well, and then consider their labors as 

 having closed. They are subsequently suffered to become choked 

 with grass, weeds, or crops of grain some live and linger, others 

 die under the hardship ; or else are demolished by cattle, or broken 

 down by the team which cultivates the ground. 



The annexed cut is a fair exhibition of the difference in results 

 between neglected management, as seen on the left, and good culti- 

 vation, on the right, as seen in trees five to ten years after trans- 

 planting. 



Fig. 88. 



NegleEled trees. 



Well cultivated orcluird. 



A neighbor purchased fifty fine peach-trees, handsomely rooted, 

 and of vigorous growth ; they were well set out in a field containing 

 a fine crop of heavy clover and timothy. The following summer 

 was dry ; and a luxuriant growth of meadow-grass nearly hid them' 

 from sight. What was the consequence ? Their fate was precisely 

 what every farmer would have predicted of as many hills of corn, 

 planted and overgrown in a thick meadow very few survived the 

 first year. 



Another person bought sixty, of worse quality in growth ; he set 

 them out well, and kept them well hoed with potatoes. He lost but 

 one tree ; and continuing to cultivate them with low-hoed crops ; 

 they now afford yearly loads of rich peaches. 



Another neighbor procured fifty good trees. Passing his house 

 the same year late in summer, he remarked : " I thought a crop of 

 wheat one of the best for young peach-trees ! " "Just the reverse ; 

 it is one of the worst all sown crops are injurious ; all low-hoed 



