EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 237 



will not wilt, very few will be lost if the soil is moderately moist. If the 

 season is very dry it may become necessary to water the plants once or 

 twice. 



PLANTING THE SEED. 



In case the seed is planted in the fall, or in the spring before it has 

 sprouted, the operation is not unlike the sowing of peas. Drills are made 

 with a marker, or with a hoe if only a few are to be planted, two inches in 

 depth and at intervals of about three feet eight inches, being rather more 

 in rich soil and less in sand; in this the seeds, which have been previously 

 cracked, are dropped about four inches apart. They should then be cov- 

 ered with a hoe or rake and the soil firmly pressed down, using a roller in 

 light soil. From eight to ten bushels of natural seed will be required per 

 acre, and with good success this should give twenty thousand trees ; as a rule, 

 however, not over ten thousand first-class trees will be obtained from an 

 acre even under the best of conditions. In laying out the nursery, it is 

 preferable to have the rows run north and south, and space should be left at 

 each end to give room for turning in cultivating. During the first part of 

 the season, the young seedlings should be cultivated once in ten days and 

 the soil between the plants occasionally stirred with a hoe to keep the 

 weeds down and a crust from forming. The cultivation should be shallow 

 and with an implement with small teeth or shovels. About the first of 

 August it will be well to go over them and rub off the leaves to a height of 

 four or five inches on the stem. In case the season is dry, the cultivation 

 should be more frequent, and if, it looks, by the middle of July or the first of 

 August as though the stocks would not reach a suitable size for working, they 

 can be aided by scattering broadcast along the rows ground bone at the rate 

 of three hundred pounds per acre and a bushel of wood ashes to eight or ten 

 rods of row. Instead of the above, guano or superphosphate could be used. 

 Nitrate of soda is also excellent to promote growth, but it should be used 

 very carefully at the rate of not over 100 pounds per acre. These should be 

 thoroughly worked into the soil. If conveniences for watering are handy 

 it will pay, if the drought continues, to give the plants a thorough watering, 

 which will help to render the fertilizer available. 



By the last of August the smallest of the seedlings should be as large as 

 a lead pencil and the others will range from that size to a half or five 

 eighths of an inch in diamater. 



BUDDING. 



As the object of this operation is to obtain trees of certain desirable 

 varieties, every precaution should be taken that the buds used are true to 

 name. As a rule, they are more reliable if taken from bearing trees, but 

 they are not as vigorous nor as easy to obtain as from nursery trees. If 

 buds from small trees are used, especial pains should be taken, as a mis- 

 take with a single bud may make a difference with a hundred or more trees 

 when buds are taken the following year. The buds, above all, should be 

 healthy, plump, and well ripened; as a rule those at both the upper and 

 the lower ends should be rejected. After cutting the bud-sticks, the 

 leaves should at once be cut off, leaving the leaf stems about three eighths 

 of an inch long, as handles to use in inserting the buds; to keep them 

 from drying they should be wrapped in oiled cloth. 



As a rule, the budding can be done as soon as the stocks are of a suit- 



