This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V27", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
The necessity for good drainage for trees as well as for flowers is well illustrated by Californian experience. In many places the soft surface soil is only about a foot deep. Then there is "hard pan " about 14 or 15 feet, then gravel. If a hole for a tree is made two feet deep, the tree may as well stand in a bucket of water. Such trees die or get sick. But when a hole four inches wide is bored through the hard pan under the trees to the gravel, the trees thrive amazingly. They grow like magic.
 
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