COUNTRY PLACES IN AUTUMN. 179 



the time to feed those which are already established, and are living 

 on too scanty an income. And how many trees are there upon 

 lawns and in gardens shade trees and fruit trees that are literally 

 so poor that they are starving to death ! Perhaps they have once 

 been luxuriant and thrifty, and have borne the finest fruit and blos- 

 soms, so that their owners have smiled, and said pleasant words in 

 their praise, as they passed beneath their boughs. Then they had 

 a good subsistence ; the native strength of the soil passed into their 

 limbs, and made them stretch out and expand with all the vigor of 

 a young Hercules. Now, alas, they are mossy and decrepit the 

 leaves small the blossoms or fruit indifferent. And yet they are 

 not old. Nay, they are quite in the prime of life. If they could 

 speak to their master or mistress, they would say " First of all, give 

 us something to eat. Here are we, tied hand and foot to one spot, 

 where we have been feeding this dozen or twenty years, until we 

 are actually reduced to our last morsel. What the gardener has oc- 

 casionally given us, in his scanty top-dressing of manure, has been 

 as a mere crust thrown out to a famished man. If you wish us to 

 salute you next year with a glorious drapery of green leaves the 

 deepest, richest green, and start into new forms of luxuriant growth 

 -feed us. Dig a trench around us, at the extremity of our roots, 

 throw away all the old worn-out soil you find there, and replace it 

 with some fresh soil from the lower corner of some rich meadow, 

 where it has lain fallow for years, growing richer every day. Mingle 

 this with some manure, some chopped sods any thing that can 

 allay our thirst and satisfy our hunger for three or four years to 

 come, and see what a new leaf yes, what volumes of new leaves 

 we will turn over for you next year. We are fruit trees, perhaps, 

 and you wish us to bear fair and excellent fruit. Then you must 

 also feed us. The soil is thin, and contains little that we can digest ; 

 or it is old, and ' sour ' for the want of being aired. Remove all 

 the earth for several yards about us, baring some of our roots and 

 perhaps shortening a few. Trench the ground, when our new roots 

 will ramble, next year, twenty inches deep. Mingle the top and 

 bottom soil, rejecting the worst parts of it, and making the void good 

 very good by manure, ashes, and decaying leaves. Then you 



