246 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
This principle, however, is only applicable to those cases"l.in which the 
ground is permanently occupied by fruit trees; and although foreign to the 
subject, I would observe that the case is widely different in that of temporary 
kitchen-garden crops, which arrive at maturity in a given time and are then 
cleared off. Here it is perfectly legitimate, and indeed very often a sheer 
necessity, to plant other crops in the intervening spaces between standing 
crops, such, for example, as that of planting Cabbages or the Brassica tribe 
generally between the rows of early Potatoes before they are ready to lift for 
use. They are not injured thereby, because by the time the plants are ready the 
Potatoes have made most of their growth, and have only to ripen off; and 
moreover, the movement of the soil consequent upon lifting the crop is highly 
beneficial to the plants. 
Perhaps I have dwelt on this too long ; but there is yet another argument 
in favour of abstaining from cropping over or near the roots of fruit trees which 
ought to be taken into consideration in making arrangements for planting— 
which is, that in order to do those vegetable crops anything like justice the 
ground must be deeply moved by trenching or very deep digging ; and when we 
consider what a strong tendency there is in fruit trees growing in a healthy 
soil to throw out their young fibres in all directions to a great length, it is 
evident that this deep moving of the soil must lacerate some and cut off a 
great number of others of those fibres, and that, too, probably at a time when 
the tree most needs them for the development of a healthy growth. Now we 
are advocates for root-pruning in its proper place as a means of checking 
luxuriant growth and inducing a fruitful habit; but I must say that it is not 
well to root-prune in this awkward and blundering manner. Boot-pruning should 
be performed at one particular season, and only becomes necessary under 
peculiar circumstances, and many trees never require it at all, but, on the 
contrary, need all the encouragement and space which can be allotted to them, 
to enable them to maintain a healthy existence. I repeat, then, that I consider 
to plant trees nearer together, so as to leave the soil undisturbed except for the 
purposes of surface-cultivation, is preferable to planting at wider intervals to 
allow of intervening crops ; and again, it seems a retrograde sort of movement 
to take every possible pains to make up a suitable compost for fruit trees, and 
then to suck out all its goodness with vegetable crops. 
I do not say but that I have now and then seen good vegetables growing 
among plantations of fruit trees, and also on the borders for wail fruit trees ; 
but m the latter case I have never been surprised to find that the trees often 
require renewal, nor that in the former case, the practice should so soon be 
found unprofitable and injurious in both ways. 
I make these remarks principally by way of inducing young gardeners to 
give the subject a thought now and then, and on the supposition that those who 
purpose to plant are intending to give that attention to cultivation that will 
soonest bring the fruit trees into a bearing and profitable state of growth. 
The case is different where a plantation is made and left to fight its way 
amongst other crops until it so far predominates as to render it useless to 
plant them, the planter, of course, looking to his crops for repayment of outlay 
for some years; but this plan can only succeed when the soil is particularly 
favourable to fruit trees and needs little or no preparation. But this is not 
cultivation, it is mere chancework ; and although it may succeed very well in 
some few r instances, there are many in which it certainly does not, and in 
■which the system is a means of bringing certain destruction on many 
varieties, which dwindle away under the treatment and eventually perish, thus 
leaving many blanks in the plantation very difficult to fill up afterwards when 
the roots of the larger trees have taken possession of the ground—as difficult, 
