40 
THE FOOD OF TREES IS IMBIBED [Part II. 
Unphilosophi- 
cal remedies. 
and the careless or ignorant gardener will show 
a fine bed of suckers with a dead trained fruit- 
tree. 
The only remedies to this suicidal diving pro¬ 
pensity of the roots of fruit-trees, which science 
has as yet suggested, are to plant them on 
mounds, or on layers of tiles!! This is as bad 
as to order the canal to be dug deeper where it 
ran over the side! Roots, by nature, have so 
strong a propensity to keep the surface, that 
they may be observed, after diving from the 
wall to a grass-walk, to rise so completely 
above it as to be injured by the scythe, or by the 
hob-nailed hoof of the clod who has condemned 
them as divers, and who, when they emerge 
from the protection of the grass-walk, again 
forces them to take a leader out of reach of his 
spade. But if the practice of the gardener is to 
be law, what does he do with the ends of the 
roots when he pots his plants ? He ruthlessly 
cuts them all off smack and smooth! And, in 
this case, if he diminished their heads, his plants 
would not droop as they do , and as my plants 
do not 
Planting forest-trees on mounds has, probably, 
arisen from the malpractice of the garden. The 
system is bad. It makes the roots of the young 
