82 STATE POMOLOGICAI. SOCIETY. 



Started laying out the orchard with a transit, as we had one at 

 our disposal. If you haven't a transit available, get some man 

 who can see straight and lay off your rows carefully. Be sure 

 to have the initial row straight. I urge that point because it 

 seems to me an orchard ought to be put down carefully, when 

 it is put there to grow for a lifetime, or a hundred years or a 

 hundred and fifty years. 



Now having laid off this straight row across the long way 

 of the orchard we took the transit and turned a right angle 

 about midway and laid off a row of stakes the other way, set- 

 ting the stakes the distance apart we wanted our trees. That 

 is all the staking that we did. We set our trees sixteen and a 

 half feet apart, and used a planting board in setting them. I 

 know a good many people do not believe in that, as they think 

 it requires too much time. But we put those trees in, having 

 usually about seven men in the planting crew, at the rate of 

 from six to seven hundred a day, and put them in in first-class 

 order. I do not believe a man can lay off his orchard 

 and put the trees in without the use of a planting board any 

 cheaper than we did. We started on the apples, and we found 

 it cost us six cents apiece to dig the holes, put the trees in and 

 prune them. \\"e went from that to a block of peaches — each 

 man was getting his work done a little better, and that cost us 

 five cents ; and then we put in about five or six hundred dwarf 

 apple trees and we put them in for four cents, the reduced cost 

 being partly due to the size of the trees and partly to the fact 

 that the men were getting more expert. These are extremely 

 low figures for the setting of trees and they were put in in first- 

 class condition. 



Question. Please explain the planting board. 



Prof. Sears. The planting board that our man used was 

 about four feet long and six inches wide. He cut a notch in 

 each end and then cut one from the side of the board. Now 

 the use of it was simply this : After the land had been staked 

 off, this board was put down with the stake where the tree was 

 to stand in the middle notch and then a small stake was driven 

 down in each of the end notches. Then the original stake was 

 taken up, the hole was dug and when we were ready to set the 

 tree, we put down the planting board and. put the tree in the 



