THE PLANTING OF TREKS. 



BY CHAS. W. GARFIELD. 



[Excerpt of an address before Illinois Horticaltnral Society, Dec. 13, 1893.] 



Mr. Garfield said, substantially: 



It is not my purpose to tell you anything new, for if I talked with you 

 with that intent, I should feel that some one of you with a nose for digging, 

 had already found much of that I shall have to say in some musty volume 

 issued between the days of Jethro Tulle and the compiler of the admirable 

 volumes of the Illinois Horticultural Society. It is dangerous to label our 

 efforts in the field of horticulture today with a tag of originality, and still 

 I do not hesitate to talk to you upon the theme that has been assigned me, 

 because, no matter what we may know about the theory and practice of 

 planting trees, our every day practice isn't anything to brag of. 



The other morning while supplying the furnace with wood I accidently 

 inserted a sliver in my thumb. It was the thumb of my right hand, and 

 not being an expert with my left, I asked a maiden in her teens if she was 

 an adept in taking out slivers. She allowed that she knew how to do it, 

 and with a needle in hand she began on me with the very best of inten- 

 tions. The result of her endeavors was a great deal of pain on my part, an 

 unnecessarily large hole in the flesh, and after a time the extraction of 

 the sliver. It should have been the work of an instant with scarcely a bit 

 of pain, but because she did not know how to do it, I had the prolonged 

 agony and still retain the scar. 



The world is full of illustrations of simple things that are poorly done 

 because of lack of practical ability in the use of theoretical knowledge. 

 The planting of trees is one of the commonest operations of horticulture, 

 and while I do not expect to tell you a new or original thing about it, I do 

 expect to call your attention to a lot of things that if you know you do not 

 practice. 



The operations of a man who threshes with a flail may not be of much 

 import to the one who operates a steam thresher, yet it may not be out of 

 place sometimes to consider the fact that many farmers would save money 

 by following the economy of the flail rather than the expense of the 

 thresher. So in tree planting, the methods of the painstaking tree-lover 

 who goes out with his wife and children, and by the exercise of the great- 

 est of care in which all unite, brings from the forest a tree with all its 



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