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HORTICULTURE 



December 12, 1903 



Tree Talks 



The first consideration in tree planting should be a 

 suitable soil. 11' in a nursery the ground should be well 

 manured and ploughed or spaded from twelve to fifteen 

 inches deep, and well pulverized. If the trees to be 

 planted are for street planting they should be planted 

 from six to eight feet apart each way, so that they can 

 be easily cultivated and worked amongst. This allows 

 of a free circulation of air and gives a chance to form a 

 fine head, and their roots and fibres are always more 

 abundant than when they are planted too crowded; it 

 also makes a more vigorous tree for future use. In 

 planting, the tree holes should be dug broad and deep 

 enough to admit of all the roots without crowding. The 

 centre of the hole should be somewhat elevated to set 

 the tree on. The tree should then be carefully looked 

 over, to see that there are no bruised roots or limbs; 

 if there are any they should be cut smooth with a sharp 

 knife. If the tree has good fibrous roots, little if any of 

 the top should be removed, unless it is a straggling limb 

 that is spoiling the form of the tree; but if the roots are 

 poor and top good, it is well to head in each branch 

 to one or two good eyes or buds, but not to make a mop 

 handle of it by sawing off the top, as is often done. The 

 tree should then be set in the centre of the hole, the 

 roots carefully spread out and the finest of the earth 

 carefully worked in amongst the fine roots. This is 

 easily done in most cases by having one take hold of the 

 tree near the surface and shake it slightly while the 

 earth is being spread over the roots. The earth should 

 be well firmed with the feet if the tree is small, or, if 

 the tree is large, with a rammer such as they use to ram 

 pavements with. The lighter the soil the more neces- 

 sary the firm planting, but in heavy clay soils there is 

 not so much need — only to firm the tree. 



STREET AND ROADSIDE PLANTING 



In planting shade trees along the streets, much more 

 care is required in the preparation of the soil to make 

 it successful. In the first place, in making your streets, 

 all or nearly all the good loam should be removed and 

 its place filled with gravel or small stones, which afford 

 but little nourishment to the growing tree where its 

 roots are confined to that alone. It is true a tree will 

 exist for a long time in a comparatively poor soil, but 

 it will repay the planter in a few years to see that his 

 ground is well prepared in the beginning. 



The holes for street trees should be excavated two or 

 three feet deep and eight to ten feet in diameter, the 

 good soil, if any, put on one side and the gravel, clay or 

 stone removed, and the hole filled with good loam. If 

 taken from an old pasture the coarse sods should be put 

 in the bottom and the finer soil on the top. If a por- 

 tion of well decompose 1 manure is mixed with the soil, 

 it will much improve it. as it must be remembered that 

 the trees planted on the streets do not, as a rule, get the 



annual top dressing that those do that are planted in 

 gardens, neither can the roots for a number .of years 

 reach the neighboring gardens, although they will in 

 time, which will show in their increased vigor. On 

 country roadsides, where the road is little more than a 

 few loads of gravel dumped on top of an ordinary soil 

 that has been rounded up to shed the water, it is prob- 

 ably not so necessary to make such a deep excavation for 

 the tree, as it would be in a city or its environs. But 

 even along these surface roads it pays in the end to pre- 

 pare and plant a tree well. The soil should be allowed 

 to settle a few days or longer, when the tree may be 

 planted in the same way as recommended for the nur- 

 sery planting. The tree when transplanted should not 

 be much deeper than it stood in the nursery. Two or 

 three inches deeper will not make much material differ- 

 ence, but, at the same time, it is best not to have much 

 of the stem below the ground. 



REMOVING LARGE TREES 



Trees of a very great size can be removed successfully 

 if time and money are of no account, but it is an ex- 

 pensive process and should be attempted only where im- 

 mediate effect is wanted, or in the case of a rare variety 

 that requires to be removed and cannot be replaced 

 otherwise. To prepare a large tree for removal a deep 

 trench should be dug around the tree from five to seven 

 feet from the base of the tree, and working under so as 

 to cut off all the roots possible without disturbing the 

 bole. The ends of the roots should all be cut smooth 

 and the trench filled up with a good compost of peat, 

 rotten sods and manure, and left for a year, when a 

 second trench can be opened at the outside of the first 

 one, and the tree carefully undermined with a pick, so 

 as to remove the soil with as little injury to the young 

 fibres as possible, and the tree carefully drawn over, so 

 as to cut whatever tap root that may have been left. If 

 a supply of bass mats is at hand they can be carefully 

 bound around the ball of earth, and, if it is not too 

 large, it can lie loaded on a drag and drawn to the place 

 of planting where the hole has been prepared before- 

 hand. If too large for a drag the ball of earth may be 

 surrounded by boards or layers of hay and straw firmly 

 bound with cords, a few boards passing underneath, and 

 the whole fastened to the stem, which should be well 

 wrapped with hay or woolen material before any force 

 for lifting is applied. It can then be raised with the 

 use of a derrick on to a truck and taken to the desired 

 place, lowered in the hole, the binding taken off, the 

 roots carefully spread and the soil well worked in 

 amongst them and well firmed. 



Large trees can also be transplanted by digging 

 around them in winter and allowing the earth around 

 them to be frozen solid, having the ground prepared 

 previously and covered with coarse material to keep out 

 the frost, and removing them on a sled to their designa- 

 tion. There are also many mechanical devices for 1 if t - 

 ing large trees. 



Arnold Arboretum. 



