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earth. Well digested compost is useful round newly planted 

 trees, in stiff or cold soils; both lime and fresh stable manure, 

 I have found prejudicial in the dry and hot weather of summer ; 

 the latter substance is also frequently a cover for moles and field 

 mice, which are extremely injurious in winter, to trees of even 

 six or eight years old, in light soils. I have found great benefit 

 from the application of every kind of manure on the surface, 

 and mixing^it gradually by cultivation with the soil, as the best 

 security against drought in summer and vermin in winter. 



The proper season for planting will be found to depend on a 

 variety of circumstances ; in light soils the winter settles the 

 earth round the roots, and best secures them againt the drought 

 of the following season ; it is a time of leisure to the farmer, and 

 affords an early selection of trees from the nursery. In stiff or 

 wet soils, I should give a preference to spring planting, other 

 circumstances being equal. I have planted in both seasons, and 

 have generally found that care and attention ensured a corres- 

 pondent success in the gro-vth of my trees. In whatever sea- 

 son an orchard may be planted, too much attention cannot be 

 given to extend the roots in every direction ; to cut off all 

 wounded parts ; and, more especially, not to plant too deep ; 

 this, I believe, is the common error of inexperienced planters. 

 As a general rule, I would recommend that the tree be placed 

 in the orchard with about three inches of earth over the upper 

 tier of roots, which will make it about two inches deeper than it 

 stood in the nursery ; that the tree, after being partially covered, 

 should be well shaken, to admit the finer particles of the earth 

 among the fibrous roots ; and that it be well settled, by tread- 

 ing the earth around it ; with these precautions, I have never 

 found the necessity of stakes. The tops of young trees should 

 never be shortened, lest it should produce a growth of suckers : 

 I would recommend, in preference, that they be thinned, if 

 found too heavy. If the trees have been long out of the ground, 

 and the roots have become shrivelled at the time of planting, 

 the labor of pouring a pail full of water round each tree, will 

 be amply repaid in the success it will ensure in their growth. 



The looser the ground is kept for the first, and, indeed, for 

 several succeeding years, the more certain, and more vigorous 

 will be the growth of the orchard. In the luxuriance and co- 

 lor'of the foliage of contiguous plantations, I have found every 

 stage of cultivation strongly marked. Those orchards which 

 have been two years under cultivation, exhibit a striking supe- 

 riority over those which have been but one year under the 

 plough ; while these, in their turn, surpass the fields in clover 

 or in grain, both in the quantity and size of the fruit. When 

 clover is sown in young orchards, I have been in the habit of 

 digging the earth, for about three feet, at the root of each tree. 

 A man will dig round one hundred trees in a day ; the trifling 

 loss of grass and labor will be fully remunerated by the improv- 

 ed vigor of the tree. When the ground can be spared from 



