This is placing around plants or trees, coarse manure or litter of any
kind, to keep down weeds, and prevent too rapid evaporation of moisture.
All straw, corn stalks, old weeds or stubble, forest leaves, seaweeds,
old wood, sawdust, old tanbark, chips, &c., are good for mulching. Any
tree taken up and planted with reasonable care, and well mulched and
watered, will live. One of fifty need not die. Cover the loose earth
deep enough to prevent the springing of weeds. Put a little earth on the
outer edge of the manure, leaving it dishing about the tree. Fill that
occasionally with water, and you will get a good growth, even in a dry
season.
Plant gooseberries or currants, and mulch the whole ground between the
bushes, and give them no other cultivation, and the berries will grow
nearly twice as large as the same varieties standing neglected, to grow
up to weeds, in the usual way. Mulching with clean, dry straw, or with
charcoal, is a preventive of mildew. It is the easiest method of taking
care of strawberries after they are in blossom; the vines will bear much
more and finer fruit, and it will be clean and neat. Mulching vines is a
great means of insuring a crop. Every crop that can be mulched will be
greatly benefited by it; hence, all the straw and litter that can be
saved is money in the pocket; for mulching alone, it is worth five times
as much as it can be sold for. Burning or in any way destroying cobs,
cornstalks, stubble, old straw, or decaying wood, is extravagant
wastefulness.