112 TREATISE ON 



The paper in which some wrap each one of their most beautiful & most precious fruit 

 can help preserve them. After the last fruits have been put in, the fruit loft is not opened 

 except during the middle of the day, & only when the weather is fine and dry. As soon as 

 the weather turns raw and nasty, it's kept tightly closed. However, it's visited frequently 

 both to inspect the condition of the fruit and to remove any spoiled ones that could spread 

 the rot to their neighbors. 



November is the time for tilling the planting beds of espalier trees. If it's 

 suspected that the decline of a tree is due to deficiency or depletion of the soil, a trench 

 three or four feet wide and deep enough to reach the roots is dug a foot or two away from 

 the base of the tree. It's filled with good fresh earth, & the spent earth that had been dug 

 up is moved elsewhere. If there's no good earth within reach, the trench must not be dug 

 as deep so that the roots aren't exposed. Fill it with manure that's rotting but that isn't 

 reduced to compost. Use horse manure if the ground is cold & hard, or cow manure if it's 

 loose. Leave the trench open & the manure exposed until about mid-February, when it's 

 covered with the soil that had been dug out of the trench. The following November the 

 ground is tilled deeply to mix the soil up with the manure, that by that time will have 

 been used up. 



Some gardeners reject manure as being harmful to trees and to the quality of their 

 fruit. Saplings that can't have depleted the soil in which they were planted definitely 

 should not be manured unless the soil is very bad. In that case they shouldn't have been 

 planted there in the first place. Even with the help of fertilizer they never will succeed 

 well. Manure likewise is useless & even could be harmful to trees 



