318 .TOUENAL OF THE EOYAL HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
undue evaporations take place. In my experience I can relate three very 
bad examples of this common cause of failure. The first was a land- 
owner, who to save a few shillings elected to plant the trees with his 
farm men. Two years afterwards I was called in to advise, and found 
they had been planted 12 to 18 inches too deeply. The whole eight 
acres had to be lifted again ; and, to show the loss of time that had taken 
place, I may say that whilst many had died, the residue had grown but 
1 foot through the heads, when in another orchard planted at the same 
time by my own people the trees were 4 feet, and some of them more, 
through the heads. 
The next was a case where the workman, to make a pretty-looking 
job, had planted some of the trees 3 feet too deep in order to bring 
all their heads level ! They were an auction-sale lot of Cherries worked at 
all manner of heights. 
The third case was a most flagrant one. A market grower purchased 
of me some hundred Peach trees, and in the May following he wrote 
to me, saying that nearly all of them had died. Now these trees, being on 
freely rooting Plum stocks, very rarely fail ; so I at once went to see them, 
and on walking through the houses I noticed here and there one had 
done well, and my friend said : " You know, there must have been some- 
thing wrong with them, or else why should a few live and all the rest 
die ? " I replied : " The reason is this ; the living trees have been 
properly planted. The others have been put in so deeply that the buds 
— which are generally twelve to fifteen inches above the ground level — 
are below the surface." After examining them and digging down, in some 
cases eighteen inches before coming to the roots, he said : " You have 
convinced me. I see my own men have done all the mischief. I must 
start again with a fresh lot." The only trees that were living were those 
which had been correctly planted. 
In many gardens, vegetable crops, which are highly manured, are 
planted close to the walls, and the borders must be therefore frequently 
dug. Now all fruit trees delight in a firm root-hold, and when it is 
otherwise they are tempted to keep on growing late into November by 
the strongly manured soil which they find, and consequently rank 
growth abounds, and Nature's work of ripening the wood is retarded 
till too late, when early frosts are fatal to the sappy wood. For a 
remedy, leave a hard 3-ft. path next the walls ; do not dig this, but just 
hoe the surface to prevent undue evaporation, and mulch and water 
freely when a crop is set. 
Watering Wall Trees. — The fact that brick walls absorb from the 
soil a large proportion of the rain that falls in the winter is often over- 
looked. The moisture draws up the walls, and is dispersed by sunshine 
and wind ; and over and over again I have been called in to see 
miserable trees, smothered with Eed Spider, and only just alive, from 
the want of copious watering in the early growing season. The planter 
overlooks the fact that frequently, even after heavy rains, the soil next 
a wall is dry as dust, as it is rarely that rain comes down quite vertically 
— and storms seldom do so — so that the fruit trees upon some walls get 
no benefit ; and especially is this the case where wide copings are used. 
Inside-planted Vines often suffer from drought at the roots ; and 
