26 



two gallons of water, according to the size of the hole, is to 

 be gently and slowly watered in from the rose of a can. It 

 will not do to slush it in from a bucket. The effect desired 

 is to settle the particles of soil finally in their places, and 

 establish an average of equal pressure around the root. A 

 sudden dash of water will convert the top stratum into 

 mud, and this will dry slowly into an impervious caked 

 surface, whereas after watering, the soil round the little 

 tree should be just as open and porous as before. 



27. If you can choose your time, let the planting be done 

 in cool overcast weather, without either bright sunshine or 

 much wind. The caution given as to the vital transpira- 

 tion taking place from all green parts, even the stem of 

 young plants so long as it has not acquired its mature 

 brown corky layer, applies here. In a few days, if the 

 soil be not inhospitably cold, your tree will have begun to 

 callus the cut portions of the roots with new tissue, and 

 new white feeding fibres will spring from this layer and 

 from the uninjured branch-roots, each sending up watery 

 food-material into the stem. The little tree has caught on 

 in its new home. 



2S. The Cape is a country where some things are killed 

 with mistaken kindness. On no account follow the common 

 custom of bottoming every tree-planting hole with a 

 shovelful of manure, under the idea that the tree is getting 

 thereby a special mark of attention. Independent of the 

 fact that " manure" too often means raw stable dung, 

 fermenting fast and reeking with ammonia, there is this to 

 be considered, that manurial ingredients can only be 

 satisfactorily taken up by those fine root-hairs we 

 described, when presented in a very diluted state by the 

 help of water. And, moreover, the fermentation and 

 decay of this organic matter gives off a large quantity of 

 carbonic acid gas, filling up the interstices of the soil and 

 driving upwards the atmospheric air which ought to fill 

 them. It is fortunate that gases have a wonderful power 

 of diffusion, and dilute themselves away with great 

 rapidity. Were it not for this, the custom of bottoming 

 tree- pits with fermenting dung would have been dropped 

 long ago as a sure means of asphyxiating the roots. If the 

 orchard has been prepared properly in average fertile soil, 



