Cultivation after Planting. 



close planting it must be trampled upon pretty nearly all 

 over; and if this take place in wet weather, the ground 

 will become baked, and, consequently, destitute of fertility 

 when the dry weather comes : there will be less dews ; and, 

 in all respects whatsoever, the ground will be less fit to pro- 

 mote the growth of the trees. 



OF THE CULTIVATION AFTER PLANTING. 



79. Some people imagine that trees, the roots of which 

 are never seen, and that are known to go so deep into the 

 ground, care nothing at all about what takes place on the 

 surface of the earth. How happens it then that the Ame- 

 ricans, when they find their orchards beginning to decay; 

 find the trees having a great deal of dead wood coming in 

 them, and find them to bear smaller fruit than usual; how 

 comes it, that they, who are by no means apt to be too pro- 

 digal of their labour, send the plough and harrow amongst 

 the trees, and manure the land ? How comes it that an Oak 

 tree, which penetrates down into the ground to a distance 

 equal to that between the ground and its summit, will 

 beggar, when growing by the side of a turnip-field, all the 

 turnips growing within several yards of its trunk ? It is not 

 its shade that does this mischief to the turnips, for it takes 

 place on the south side of it as well as on the north, which 

 I have witnessed in hundreds of instances, and which every 

 farmer knows to be true. The trnth is, the trees draw their 

 nourishment, principally, from the ground near the surface; 

 and, as they pull much harder than the turnips, or any thing 

 else of the herbaceous kind, their roots will have the greater 

 part of the manure, put as much as yon will into the 

 ground. 



80. Very erroneous, therefore, is the notion, that weeds 



