STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 37 



red cedars which the birds have set out for us. We need not go 

 to Europe for Norways or Scotch pines. I don't belive there is 

 a member here who wants to plant Scotch pines. The Austrian 

 pines hold on a little longer, but they don't look well. We have 

 a tree that grows in the swamps in this country, and all through 

 New England. It is the prettiest thing that ever grew, and I 

 think that when once established it don't require as much care as 

 the pines, and that is the Hemlock. Down at Jefferson Barracks, 

 the Government has had them out for many years, and the officers 

 have taken a fancy to them and they are, some of them, thirty 

 feet high and are simply magnificent. There is no prettier thing 

 in the way of a tree, but they are hard to make live. The White 

 Pine if planted in groups of about a half dozen makes beautiful 

 groups. They keep their color better than the Austrian and 

 Scotch. Pruning evergreens seems to have various effects on them. 

 A friend of mine showed me a Norway that was about the only nice 

 tree he had. I said that the cause of that was his keeping it 

 pruned, but I found afterward that the tree had died from the 

 effects of the pruning. We know that where evergreens are 

 pruned a whole bunch of shoots start out, and that makes the 

 limbs thicker, and I have known that to kill the trees. 



Mr. Jackson — I do not find any difficulty in putting out Hem- 

 locks. I have not lost more than one in fifty. 



Mr. H.D. Brown — lam glad to see the Hemlock championed. I 

 have Hemlocks twenty-five years old, and I don't allow any man 

 to trim them. 



Dr. Humphrey — If I have a hobby, it is in setting plants and trees. 

 I have set five hundred plants and not lost one. I water them 

 even if it is raining. I invariably put water in the place of plant- 

 ing. If I have the ground just right, I water once and only once. 

 If the ground is a little dry, I put in a pail of water and then let it 

 stand a little while, then put in another pail of water. I put out 

 the tree and make the ground firm towards the top. I never pound 

 the roots but pound the ground near the top. Some years ago I 

 set out ten Willow Twigs, and the roots were dry and I put two 

 pails of water with each tree, and I have picked seventeen crops 

 from those trees, and 1 have never lost one of them. In regard to 

 planting evergreens, I never expose their roots to the air. 



