SECRETARY'S REPORT. 177 



might do it with equal effect by representing a purchaser selecting 

 large trees at a nursery and rejecting young thrifty ones. 



>7 



Shelter. 



Planting of Screens. The importance of shelter has already 

 been several times alluded to, and a word may here be in place as 

 to the better mode of securing it. It is well to have an evergreen 

 screen or belt on all sides of the orchard ; and if it be a large one, 

 to have one or two running through it ; but at least the two sides 

 ■which are most exposed to injurious winds should be well protected. 



Our common Spruces, Black and White, Balsam Firs and White 

 Cedar (Arbor Vitse) are the most available for the purpose. The 

 Hemlock would make a more beautiful one, but it is very impa- 

 tient of transplanting unless quite small, say only a few inches 

 high. The common and almost universal error of all beginners is, 

 to plant evergreens of too large size. Unless they have been pre- 

 viously grown in a nursery and several times transplanted when 

 quite smdll, none shoxild be set over two feet high, and one foot is 

 much better. Let them be taken from open pastures in preference 

 to the forests and take as much earth as will adhere to the roots. 

 Be careful, also, that the roots do not dry in the least, and plant as 

 soon as possible, in trenches previously prepared, and ready to re- 

 ceive them. A strip of land should be prepared at least one year 

 previously, by plowing several furrows and planting it with potatoes 

 or other hoed crop. May is the best month for moving evergreens, 

 or until they have made an inch or two of new growth. Never 

 prune them, and especially not by removing the lower limbs, as 

 both their beauty and efficiency depend upon a dense pyramidal 

 growth. Choose damp weather for transplanting. They may be 

 set anywhere from three to six feet apart, and if you set out sev- 

 eral rows, so as to form a dense belt, all the better. If the plants 

 are small and good, and the operation well conducted, you may 

 expect a dense screen fifteen or twenty feet high in ten or twelve 

 3'^ears ; and to be repaid, many times over, for the trouble, in the 

 increased health, vigor and productiveness of the orchard.* 



* "All who are conversant with the progress of arboricultural art in Great Britain 

 are well aware of the necessity of pi'otection to what we consider one of the hardiest 

 of all trees, the oak; and that no plantation is completely successful which does not 

 have it. For a time the opinions of planters were divided in this respect, but when 

 Government undertook. the planting of the Royal Forests of 40,000 acres, the expcri- 



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