ORCHARDS AND FRUIT CULTURE. 35 



Mr. R. Dunham of Woodstock. Considerable has been said 

 about selecting trees that are well balanced. The question arises, 

 how shall such trees be produced ? 1 think it highly necessary, 

 as we generally put the seed into the ground thick, that the trees 

 should be transplanted when one or two years of age, and that is 

 the time to prepare the tree so that it shall grow well balanced. 

 Caution should be used in preparing the roots. If the tree has a 

 tap-root that should be shortened and the top should be so 

 trimmed as to be well balanced. Then the tree will grow into 

 regular shape and be well balanced. Then if I were to transplant 

 that tree before budding or grafting, I would take it up early in 

 the fall, carry it to a dry piece of land and bury it, root and 

 branch in the soil. Then early in the spring, I would take it up 

 and transplant it. I have found this to be the most successful 

 way of removing a tree from the nursery to the orchard. When 

 taken out in the spring the sap seems to run freely into every part 

 of the tree, and every bud ready to start. Trees thus treated 

 seem to grow more vigorously than by any other method. 



Muck has been spoken of as a bad soil to plant apples on. I 

 once planted out a lot of nursery trees upon a piece of mucky 

 land on which loam and gravel had been carted and they did well. 

 It has also been said that the roots of trees should not be dried. 

 I once had a bundle of trees which had been delayed until they 

 were quite dry, roots and tops both. I soaked them in a pond 

 two days and then planted $hem and saved the whole. Some 

 were left and became good sized bearing trees, and bear well. 

 The} 1 bear profusely in some years. 



Mr. Gold. Does water ever stand about your trees which are 

 planted on muck ? 



Mr. Dunham. In the spring when the snow goes off, the water 

 will come into my orchard perhaps a foot or more deep, but I 

 have no doubt that a very coarse gravel underlies this muck-bed, 

 for in a week's time the water all disappears. There is no water 

 during the whole summer season, so that I think it is well under- 

 drained, though I did not expend any labor to drain it. 



Question. Do you consider New York trees safe aud desirable 

 to plant? 



Mr. Dunham. I do not care much where a tree grows. If a 

 tree could be well taken up in New York nursery and brought 

 safely to Maine (though I would not recommend it to be done, 

 because I believe we ought to raise our own trees) I should as 



