BIENNIAL REMOVAL OE ERUIT TREES. 



99 



or fertile for a series of years. A wall covered with 

 healthy peach or nectarine trees of a good ripe age is 

 rarely to he seen ; failing crops and blighted trees are 

 the rule, healthy and fertile trees the exception. The. 

 following mode of treating peaches, nectarines, apri- 

 cots, and plums on the removal S}^stem I have found 

 simple and efficacious. 



Supposing a trained tree, of the usual size, to have 

 been planted in a border well prepared — i. e., stirred 

 to a depth of twenty inches ; it may be trained to the 

 wall as usual, and suffered to grow two seasons. To- 

 ward the end of October, or, indeed, any time in No- 

 vember in the second season, it should be carefully 

 taken up, with all its roots intact. If there be two or 

 three stragglers — i. e., roots of two or three feet in 

 length — for roots are remarkably eccentric, and often, 

 without any apparent cause, run away in search of 

 something they take a fancy to — cut off one foot or so, 

 so as to make the roots of the tree more snug. Then 

 make the hole from whence you took your tree a 

 little deeper, and fit to receive its roots without bend- 

 ing or twisting. Place in it any light compost. If 

 the soil be heavy, leaf-mould, rotten manure, and 

 loam, equal parts : if it be light, two-thirds tender 

 loam, not sandy, and one-third rotten manure. Two 

 inches deep of this compost will be enough for the 

 roots of the tree to rest on ; and mind they are care- 

 fully arranged, so as to diverge regularly : then add 

 enough of the compost to cover all the roots, and fill 

 in with the common soil, so as not to cover the sur- 

 face roots more than two inches deep. If the soil be 

 light, the surface should be trodden down very firmly, 



