STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 139 



if you planted trees from a nursery. Stake out the ground and work 

 the spot deep. The larger the hole and deeper the subsoil, from 

 the surface, the harder you have to pack the soil, when you 

 fill it up again. Set the stake, then plant two or three seeds on 

 the north side of the stake, or anything else you are using for a 

 mark. If they are fresh plant them in the fall and cover about 

 one inch with loose earth or mould. If dry, plant early in spring 

 soaking the seeds first, and cover lightly, say half or three-eights 

 of on inch deep. Keep clean, the same as your corn, potatoes or 

 any hoed crops. If all the seeds should come up, remove the sur- 

 plus either the first or second year. 



To enlarge the orchard, transplant them, or fill out where any 

 are missing ; taking good care in digging them up to save all the 

 roots possible. Unless you do so, those not disturbed will get the 

 start of the transplanted ones. Mulch the first winter if on an 

 exposed situation. Do so any way, so as to be sure the frost will 

 not go below the tap roots. The only success we will have in 

 raising good orchards will be by planting seedlings one year, or 

 the farthest, two years old. 



Transplanting should be done thus early because the main tap 

 root is not disturbed. The further the soil is loosened the faster 

 and farther these roots will go down, and the safer the tree will be. 



The roots will not be killed because parts of them reach below 

 frost, and if it should freeze up dry in the fall, those roots will sup- 

 ply moisture, when the frost is coming out of the frozen part, 

 even if the earth takes it up. 



The small trees should be watered if not mulched because the 

 tap root may not go far enough to be safe from frost. 



Drouths are no injury to deep rooted trees. I am convinced 

 pears of hardy kinds can be grown in the same way, because the 

 farther the tap roots go down the lesser will be the surface root, 

 and certain changes in the weather will not excite the trees, and 

 stimulate to excessive growth, and thus they are saved against fire- 

 blight. 



We have samples from a pear tree that stands on level ground. 

 The seed was planted where it stands in 1858. It got broken down 

 in 1865 by a team running away, but it sprouted up again and there 

 is now a clump of five or six trees from four to seven inches each 

 in diameter. One of those is very curved at the ground, and the 

 roots have grown out on the underside of it so much, that the part 

 where the shoots had started out, remained only the size of an 

 inch or so, because those surface roots supplied the tree as fast as 

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