136 MANUAL OF GARDENING 
Fall-planted trees should generally be mounded up, sometimes 
even as high as shown in Fig. 152. This hilling holds the plant 
in position, carries off the water, prevents too deep freezing, and 
holds the earth from heaving. The mound is taken away in 
the spring. It is sometimes advisable to mound-up established 
trees in the fall, but on well-drained land the practice is usually 
not necessary. In hilling trees, pains should be taken not to 
leave deep holes, from which the earth was dug, 
close to the tree, for water collects in them. 
Roses and many other bushes may be mounded 
in the fall with profit. 
It is always advisable to mulch plants that 
are set in the fall. Any loose and dry ma- 
terial — as straw, manure, leaves, leafmold, 
litter from yards and stables, pine boughs — 
may be used for this purpose. Very strong 
or compact manures, as those in which there 
is little straw or litter, should be avoided. 
The ground may be covered to a depth of 
five or six inches, or even a foot or more if the material is loose. 
Avoid throwing strong manure directly on the crown of the 
plants, especially of herbs, for the materials that leach from 
the manure sometimes injure the crown buds and the roots. 
This protection may also be given to established plants, par- 
ticularly to those which, like roses and herbaceous plants, are 
expected to give a profusion of bloom the following year. This 
mulch affords not only winter protection, but is an efficient 
means of fertilizing the land. A large part of the plant-food 
materials have leached out of the mulch by spring, and have 
become incorporated in the soil, where the plant makes ready 
use of them. 
Mulches also serve a most useful purpose in preventing the 
ground from packing and baking by the weight of snows and 
rains, and the cementing action of too much water in the surface 
152. Tree earthed 
up for winter. 
