334 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Wind well with straw or cloth matting, where the tree is to be 
bound, in one or two places, to promote an upright growth. A 
very wrong idea exists about watering newly planted trees. 
Many suppose that a tree cannot live unless its roots are water 
soaked three or four times a week; while they give no attention 
to the top, though the atmosphere be ever so dry. It is seldom 
necessary to water trees after they are once well planted. If 
at the time of planting, the ground is very dry, use half a pail 
of water to each tree, pouring it in with a watering pot, as'the 
fine soil is being placed around the fibres; thus moistened the 
earth will adhere firmly to them, and if each tree is then, as it 
should be, thoroughly mulched with straw, coarse litter, or, 
what is better, half rotted chip manure, the per cent, of death 
by drouth will be found very small, and you avoid the ne¬ 
cessity of watering. 
Cultivation.— The fruit cultivator having purchased his 
trees and planted them with the best of care, using every im¬ 
provement which modern skill could devise, must not think his 
task is done. He must know, as he will by experience, that it 
is the “labor of love” for the things that perish; that it is the 
after-care for years to come, which tells in the orchard. If the 
cultivation of the soil is neglected, or its strength exhausted 
by unsuitable crops, or its fertility used in sustaining a crop of 
weeds and grass; or again if the orchard is to be used as a 
sheep pasture, and the trees for fly-brushes, then he need not 
wonder if his hopes are blasted and Wisconsin prove a very 
poor fruit country. But if, on the other hand, he studies the 
nature of the soil, the natural wants and demands of the trees, 
he will refrain from growing crops of small grain on the land, 
knowing that they will absorb nearly all the moisture of dews 
and rains in the early part of the season; and ripening at mid¬ 
summer, they are removed just as the body and roots most need 
protection from the sun. 
The crops best suited to an orchard, are potatoes, beans, 
turnips, corn, and all hoed crops; anything which requires the 
frequent stirring of the soil is found beneficial. 
