MULCHING AND PLA.NTING FRUIT TREES. 



167 



vancing, the work could not be postponed. 

 Taking my foreman along, who, in his labors 

 with me, I have learned to be as good a 

 planter as myself — and I do know how to 

 plant a tree — with four men, making two 

 parties, we commenced. Before breakfast in 

 the morning we went into the nursery and 

 took up as many trees as would last us 

 through the forenoon, which, immediately af- 

 ter breakfast, a cart took out into the field, 

 and distributed in parcels of a dozen or twenty 

 each. We first laid out the orchards (two 

 separate pieces of land being allotted for the 

 purpose,) with an outside row of trees planted 

 entirely around it, two rods apart, and two 

 cross rows, one each way through the centre, 

 for the purpose of " lining" the trees in 

 straight rows as we set them. In this cngi- 

 ncer planting we had two extra men. Our 

 tools were a shovel and a spade for the two 

 men in each party, and a hoe each for our- 

 selves. The sods were removed for a space 

 about four feet in diameter,* down to their 

 ploughed depth ; the subsoil loosened, but 

 not thrown out, about three inches below ; 

 then an inverted bed of sod thrown into the 

 hole, so as to leave the tree, when planted, 

 slightly above the level of the general sur- 

 face ; then the pulverised earth thrown in 

 upon the roots about three inches deep, which 

 were all nicely and carefully spread out as 

 when they stood in the nursery. Over this 

 were laid the inverted sods, to the height of 

 two to three inches above the neck of the 

 tree as it stood in the nursery ; so as when 

 the sod decomposed and settled, it should 

 leave the stem fair ; cut off the top of the 



* The foUowinif iiiciiieiit shows how liule gumption most 

 laborers have about tree-planlin?: A year or two asjo I sal 

 a couple of men (and ofood diggers t!iey were, loo,) al work 

 to dig- holes for my fruit trees, and gave them a stick four feet 

 in length for the diameter of the lioles. which were also to be 

 eighteen inches deep. At'ter they had dug pari of a day, I 

 went lo look at llieir work. The first half dozen holes were 

 pretty well; but after thai, they gradually tapered oiT till they 

 were hardly as big as your hat I And when asked why they 

 viid'iit work up to the rule, very gravely answered, that it was 

 too much trouble lo carry the stick, and they thought the holes 

 big enough I A fair specimen of our country work. 



tree when too high, thinned out and cut back 

 the branches, trod the sods firmly about the 

 roots, and the work was done. After dinner, 

 another complement of trees were taken up in 

 the nursery as before ; and in six days our 

 twelve hundred trees were planted, as such a 

 number of trees are seldom planted in this 

 country. But we loorhed ! Two sets of 

 us — one set of men to a row. 



As I before remarked, three or four acres 

 of this planting was in sod meadow. Here 

 we excavated holes four feet in diameter, and 

 a foot to fifteen inches deep. The sods, as 

 we dug them, were thrown on to one side 

 until the hole was finished. When this last 

 was done, the sods were thrown into the bot- 

 toms of the holes inverted. We had an ox 

 cart along with us, which was kept filled with 

 the choicest mould from the adjoining ploughed 

 ground. The roots of the trees were spread as 

 before upon the inverted sods ; and the hole 

 entirely filled to the surface from the cart, 

 upon which the excavated earth just taken 

 from the holes was packed; making a mound 

 like an inverted dining plate, to settle — as 

 with the trees in the ploughed ground. That 

 ended our labors. 



And now for the result. The season, far 

 into summer, was cold, backward and dry. 

 Since the first of July we have had good rains, 

 so that there is no fear of suffering from fu- 

 ture drouths this year. I examined my whole 

 orchard the other day, in company with Col. 

 Hodge of the Buffalo nursery, Mr. Bryant 

 of the Erie nursery, and Professor Coppock, 

 who were a committee of the Buffalo Horti- 

 cultural Society for the purpose ; and every 

 single tree of the twelve hundred was alive, 

 and most of them had made from three to 

 eighteen inches growth of young wood on the 

 single limb since planting ! Nor were they 

 an extraordinary select lot of trees. They 

 were from an inch to one and a half inches in 

 diameter at the base, five to eight feet high, 



