EVERGREENS. 349 



red cedar. A friend of mine livingr near the river went across the 

 Mississippi and pulled out of the sand a lot of little red cedars, 

 four hundred of them. He set them out six feet apart, and 

 they are nearly twenty-five feet hig-h now. I want to answer the 

 question Mr. Converse asked. I think we make a naistake with 

 our evergreens; we get in too much of a hurry. Mr. Elliot and 

 others know it is quite a task to plant and care for our native 

 Minnesota evergreens. I would like to show you a bed of forest 

 seedlings transplanted in nursery rows, and where I have saved 

 during those dry seasons of last 5'ear and year before over eighty 

 per cent of them. The way I treat them is this: As fast as they 

 are pulled I puddle them, not just in water, but in water mixed 

 with clay, a clay mush, so the roots are coated all over. Then I 

 keep them cool. I do not pack them in large bunches, and cut 

 away two-thirds of the tops of the trees, and trim off the long 

 fine roots. I do not plant them out as soon as I can get them 

 into the ground, but I put them away where they will not heat 

 until some favorable time to plant. Firm the earth closely around 

 the roots and shade them the first year, and then let them stand 

 one or two years before they are planted out. I can show you 

 whole rows transplanted from that bed, and there was not one 

 tree in a hundred that failed. I have a lot of those white spruce 

 that grew over two feet the year they were transplanted. 



Mr- Converse: How much do you trim back a three or four 

 foot spruce? 



Mr. Smith: I am not prepared to answer that question, because 

 I have not been handling any of that size, and I would not re- 

 commend any one to handle trees of that size. 



Mr. Converse: My question might apply to anj' size, as to how 

 much should be left. 



Mr. Smith: I would trim back all but two inches of last year's 

 growth of everj'^ branch. 



Pres. Underwood: Cut off one-third of the top of the trees. 



Apple Picking and Packing.— As now generally practiced— 

 picking each apple separately — it is necessarily slow, laborious and 

 expensive. But, thanks to Yankee ingenuity, the needs of this 

 emergency, like many others, seem to be successfully met. A pro- 

 minent and extensive fruit grower of Genesee county has invented 

 and quite satisfactoril}^ used for two seasons an apparatus construct- 

 ed of canvas, resembling somewhat that of an inverted umbrella, 

 into which the fruit is shaken from the tree; and from an aperture 

 in the smaller and lower part, it is deposited in a basket, to be car- 

 ried away and assorted. While many are prejudiced against shak- 

 ing winter fruit from trees under any consideration, the sales of 

 fruit at different periods during the season gathered in this inau- 

 ner, relative to its keeping qualities and the prices obtained, prove 

 that in harvesting the fruit of the extensive apple orchards of 

 western New York and other parts of our country, hand picking as 

 generally practiced is now hopefully being superseded. — Farm 

 and Vineyard. 



