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THE planter's guide. 



method must be adopted ; as it is plain tliat, brandies 

 and roots being relative and correlative, the former could 

 not possibly be got to extend were so severe a discipline 

 to be practised on the latter. 



To meet this difficulty with any counteracting effect, I 

 have found but one method which, although opposite to 

 gardeners' practice, is deserving of the notice of the 

 planter. Instead of digging among, and disturbing the 

 roots for the introduction of manure, let about a cart- 

 load of peat compost be taken, carefully prepared as 

 above, and in the most perfect state of pulverisation, or 

 coal ashes of a like quantity, for a tree five-and-twenty 

 feet high ; to which let four or five cart-loads of any 

 tolerable soil be added — of an opposite quality, if possible, 

 to that of the ground ; and let the whole be laid down 

 round the tree, and about four feet out from it. Let 

 three workmen proceed to throw these materials close to 

 the stem, two throwing the earth and one throwing the 

 compost in a regular manner, and scattering the whole in 

 the way of lime on a field of fallow. Let the workmen 

 next half-trench the heap, as directed above in the fore- 

 going section, and intimately mix and toss it backwards 

 and forwards for the same purpose. Lastly, let them 

 spread it in a sloping direction outwards to the extent of 

 the roots ; keeping it at the extremities four inches thick, 

 and at the stem about three times that thickness. 

 Should there not be materials enough to accomphsh this, 

 an additional quantity must be procured. Into this loose 

 and friable mould the genial rains of spring will readily 

 enter, and, carrying with them the carbonic acid gas of 

 the atmosphere, render the whole the most deskable food 

 for plants. Thus excited, the fibrous roots, which always 

 strike upwards, will, during the first year, nearly per- 

 vade the mass ; by which means both the roots and the 



