CHAPTER VI. 



CULTIVATION OP THE SOIL, 



In passing through the country, and visiting the grounds of 

 fruit-growers, and examining the exhibitions of pomological 

 societies, a marked difference is observed in the same variety 

 as gfrown on different grounds. In one case it is small and 

 poor flavored ; in another it is large, beautiful, rich, and excel- 

 lent. The owner of the poor fruit is much disappointed in 

 what he expected to see, and considers himself as "badly 

 humbugged" by the nurseryman who sold him the trees. The 

 successful cultivator takes his specimens to a fair, and sweeps 

 off the premiums by their delicious quality and excellent ap- 

 pearance. Now, this question at once arises: What is the 

 cause of this difference? And it is just such questions as we 

 like to hear asked. 



The first, and perhaps the most prominent cause, is cultiva- 

 tion. Place a tree in grass-land, or give it no cultivation — let 

 the surface become baked hard, like flagging, or allow weeds 

 to cover the surface — and the tree will have a feeble growth, 

 and the fruit, as a necessary consequence, will partake of the 

 condition of the tree. A feeble tree will, of course, bear small 

 fruit. Hence, one reason why young trees often produce larger 

 and finer specimens than old and stunted trees. Cultivation 

 alone has often changed both size and quality in a surprising 

 degree. Some years ago a few trees of the Seckel pear were 

 observed to bear very small fruit — they were then standing in 

 grass. Subsequently the whole surface was subjected to good 

 cultivation. The next crop had pears at least triple the size 

 of the former. A St. Ghislain tree, on another place, bore at 

 first when standing in grass-land, and disappointment was felt 

 by the owner at the small size and poor quality of the fruit. 

 A herd of swine accidentally rooted up the grass and reduced 

 the ground to a mellow surface. The pears that year were 



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