Page:A Short Treatise on Horticulture.djvu/95

 these circumstances, and effects of climate, may greatly aid those concerned in the acclimalion of trees calculated for fruit or for ornament.

As a prejudice has prevailed from time immemorial, that trees, like cattle, when removed from a rich to a poorer soil, cannot thrive; and, as nursery grounds are generally supposed to be kept in the richest possible state, it is a duty which the author owes to himself to remark, that for many years he has not made use of as much manure on his grounds as is commonly put on the same quantity of ground by farmers in their usual course of agriculture—not from any belief in the above mentioned doctrine, but from motives of economy, resulting from actual experiment, he has substituted culture for manure, by having his grounds, previously to planting, ploughed more than twice the usual depth, and by having the ground each year dug alongside of the rows of trees. By this management they are continued in the most thrifty state until the period for transplantation. The doctrine of trees not thriving when removed from a rich to a poorer soil, has long since been exploded in Europe. Marshall, a celebrated English writer, is very particular on this subject, and gives instances that have come under his observation to prove its fallacy, in his "Rural Economy of the Midland Counties of England," vol. i. p. 85. It is absolutely necessary that the young trees, at the time of transplanting, should be vigorous and thrifty, and it is of no consequence whether this is produced by strength of soil or by culture, as the young trees will then have a constitution prepared to feed themselves on coarser food.

To those who insist on the point that nurseries of trees should be reared on poor ground, the reply may be made, that it might, with equal aptitude, be asserted, that a decrepid man is the best calculated to sustain the toils of a journey.

It is recommended, in localities wholly exposed to the ocean—such as Nantucket, and other islands—that those who desire to succeed in cultivating fruits, should first plant a row of red cedars, willows, or other hardy trees, to break