CHAPTER IX. 



CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 



THE importance of good transplanting has been 

 already noticed ; yet very few practice it as xt should 

 be done. 



There is another department in the care of fruit 

 trees, still less known and appreciated, and still 

 more important ; perhaps not so much so m itself 

 as from its almost universal neglect, and the con- 

 sequent disastrous results. This is thorough cul- 

 tivation of the soil. For, of many hundreds of 

 trees which the writer has seen transplanted by 

 various cultivators, more have been lost from NEG- 

 LECTED AFTER-CULTURE, than from all other causes 

 put together. 



Persons who purchase young trees treat them 

 variously, as follows : ' 



1. Some kill them at once by drying them in 

 the sun or wind, or freezing them in the cold. 



2. Others kill them by crowding the roots into 

 small holes in hard ground, where they can never 

 flourish, and rarely live. 



3. Others set them out well, but that is all. 

 This done, they consider the whole work as finish- 



