Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/161

 chards totally ruined at first by careless planting. In some, the trees lying to one side just as chance or the wind made them; in others, the trees hard-looking and bark-bound by deep planting. The former is sheer neglect in securing the tree to a stake; the latter, misapplied care. Writers on the subject say, “Dig a pit eighteen inches or two feet deep, and fill it up with rich compost; plant the tree therein one or two inches deeper than it was in the nursery row.” This looks very well, but when applied it proves a grave to thousands. In the first place, the hole is much too deep: the soil, being all loose and fresh, decomposes, and falls down a few inches, taking the tree with it, so that in two years (just when the tree should put forth luxuriantly) it falls into the pit prepared for it, never to recover. Dig the pit or hole fully one foot deep, and three or four feet wide; break and prepare the soil well, in which place on its top your tree, over which lay a load of well prepared soil, sufficient to cover the roots entirely. Place a strong support to the tree, to prevent the wind disturbing the roots. The soil will settle, but not so as to take the roots of the tree into a tub of clay; they will always be on the surface, where nature intended them. As the tree will now rely on the new, vigorous fibres, which will be produced in its new station, if the soil be fine, moist, and warmed by the sun’s influence, no fears need be entertained but that they will come forth to carry on the growth of the plant. Many trees have to be procured from a distance, perhaps thousands of miles. If nursery trees, they are generally packed in bundles,—packed is perhaps too business-like an expression,—they are tied like a bundle of fuel for the kitchen. Trees that have to be sent a great distance should be packed in boxes. The purchaser had better pay twice the cost of such, to have it done, as they are frequently as dry as rods when they come to hand. In such a case, have the trees soaked in water a few hours, and cover them up in wet straw or hay for twelve hours more; then puddle their roots in earth made to the consistency of thin