70 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



9 



get rid of your vexation, you will shift the site of 

 your trees, and occasion no small loss both to your- 

 self and them. Wherefore, the following observa- 

 tions 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 expense 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 expansion 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 

 hill side, showing good soil, though plentifully 

 mingled with large stones, the trees, with less of 

 your provision, will forage for themselves. But 

 early canker, and that even of the young shoots, will 

 certainly ensue wherever pure gravel or indurated 

 clay meets the feeding 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 common hedge. The most that can be 

 made of a low wall and slender depth of soil, is to 

 set the paradise stocks on the very surface, making 

 no pit in planting them, but merely throwing earth 



