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THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ June, 
ROOT-CULTURE OF FRUIT TREES. 
;AVING read Mr. Fish’s remarks on my system of fruit-tree planting 
(p. 107), I beg to say that its description was not meant as a challenge 
to him. I said, gardeners differ in their opinions. My experience is 
all in favour of deep borders, deep trenching, and deep soil for all 
garden crops. It may be called deep planting if you will, but my 
whole aim is to prepare a deep bed of good soil to plant the trees on. Mr. 
Fish asks, Why not put the roots deep at once ? I answer, That is not 
Nature’s way, nor is it practical. A foot is depth enough for a young tree ; 
its roots will go down if not drawn to the top by mulching. Next as to the 
warm soil, I have often dug around trees when the soil has been frozen 
14 inches deep : now all below that must be warmer in winter. There is 
none of Nature’s covering of leaves on wall-tree borders, or in orchards ; the 
leaves are all raked away, and the ground is often cropped with winter salads, 
vegetables, &c., or dug roughly for the winter. In summer all is in crop 
again, and there is no chance for mulching. 
Every element of nature is against fruit trees planted on shallow soils, 
or with their roots on the surface. They are starved by drought in summer, 
starved by cold in winter, blown about by every wind, and often laid pro¬ 
strate on the ground, unless held up by some clumsy support such as we 
too often see. Now put a deep bed of soil, prepared as I have recommended, 
and the trees will be their own protectors, and will give lasting satisfaction. 
Sudbrooke Holme. George McBey. 
« AM glad that Mr. Fish has called some attention to the roots of fruit 
trees. During a short tour last autumn I had an opportunity of 
f visiting several gardens, some of them entirely new, and I was 
surprised to see how little attention had been given to the walls and 
wall-borders; no doubt the border had been trenched with the other 
part of the ground, but it would appear that as the trees would occupy 
the whole of the wall, they must be content with the lower stratum of 
the border, for all the surface was cropped with one thing or another. 
It has been said that the vegetable department of the garden receives 
less attention than that of fruit or flowers, but I am not sure about the 
truth of this. I am inclined to think that out-of-door fruits have received 
comparatively but little attention. In the cultivation of our most common 
vegetables, any good cultivator will trench deep, and study the manure best 
adapted to the crop, but too generally fruit trees are planted, and then left 
to get whatever the land will afford them. But this is not all: the sur¬ 
face-cropping is the greatest evil, and this must be condemned by all good 
