General Instructions. 



you eaiuiot do in wet weather. For this reason it is, that I 

 prefer March and April as the season for doing the work of 

 planting : bur, be it done at what season of tlie year it may, 

 the ground ought not to be icet ; for then it falls in about the 

 roots in lumps, or in a sort of flakes, Hke mortar. It never 

 gets close and compact about the roots ; and if you tread 

 it, it becomes, in dry weather, so hard as actually to pen up 

 the roots of the tree as if they were in a vice. 



44. It is a great error to suppose that you gain time by 

 autumnal or winter planting. You do, indeed, see the buds 

 come out a little more early in the spring ; but it is the 

 effect at the end, and not at the beginning of the summer, 

 at which you ought to look. If you plant in the autumn, 

 or winter, the plants get blown about for several months, 

 and, in very wet weather, their stems work a sort of hole 

 round themselves ; and thus the root itself is shaken ; and 

 if left thus, they will, by March, be generally leaning on 

 one side, with the hole open on the other side; and when 

 the harsh winds of March come upon the long-time bat- 

 tered ground, it will present a surface nearly as hard as a 

 road. In such a case, the ground ought to be dug or 

 spudded up between the trees, in March or in April ; for 

 nothing can thrive well in ground thus baked, however 

 good the ground may be in its nature. 



45. If you plant in the spring, you obviate all these evils. 

 The ground is dry; it receives no injury from trampling ; 

 it lies light, and is ready to suck in the warm rains ; it is 

 easily kept clean all the summer, and you do the work in 

 half the time, and, of course, at half the expense. The 

 buds come out a little later, as I said before ; but they come 

 out stronger, 'i'he roots have warm ground to go off in ; 

 they all strike at once, and do not die in part, as those of 



