HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 145 



why go abroad for it when you have as good a climate right here 

 in the very heart of the country as you can possibly find anywhere? 

 Go to work and fix up by planting out the God given evergreen 

 trees, thickly and without stint, all about you, and you will thus 

 so modify the rigor of our sometimes severe winters that no other 

 country will have the charms for you that you see here in your 

 beautiful Minnesota homes. 



While in California last year my wife was speaking of some of 

 the beauties there. I said I'd give them all for only one of my 

 fine evergreen lawn trees in Minnesota. 



I have been asked how I managed to get my evergreens to grow 

 in such symetrical shapes. 



There is no difficulty in making a beautiful tree on the lawn if 

 it is properly trained. The divine injunction is, to "train up a 

 child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not 

 depart from it." This is just exactly what must be done if you 

 would have fine trees of this sort. First comes the selection of 

 your trees from the nursery. Of varieties, I will say take almost 

 any, except the Scotch and Austrian pines. These are too rough 

 in their habits of growth for a fine appearance upon a lawn. Select 

 those only that are well limbed to the ground about equally on all 

 sides. In digging them, remember that if you expose the roots to 

 the air, it kills your tree in a very short time. The roots, as soon 

 as lifted out, perspire a resinous sap, which coats the bark of the 

 roots over, and they become so hermetically sealed thereby that 

 ever afterwards all communication between the plant and the soil 

 is entirely cut off; and men who plant out such trees, so exposed, 

 had better bury their hopes of them in the holes they dig, than to 

 set the dead trees in them. As soon as dug pack the roots securely 

 in wet straw or moss, for transit. I have never lost any more in 

 transplanting the coniferae, than the deciduous trees. In setting 

 them in the lawn, always dig a good capacious hole for the tree, then 

 get out the tree and sprinkle its roots at once, and immediately set 

 in its place, covering with the moist earth and pressing it into all 

 vacancies, and firming the soil about the roots faithfully. Fill the 

 hole up full, then when all are set, mulch well with anything that 

 will retain the moisture, and keep them from drying unduly. I 

 never use water in transplanting; I think its tendency is to harden 

 the ground. I used water many years ago, but I found success 

 was as certain without it; consequently I abandoned it. I think 

 good mulching is as good a cultivation, for young irees, and more 

 practicable for the lawn. Now, early the next spring you will need 

 to go over them, and if all have made a good healthy growth, you 

 can cut all of the ends of the shoots off a few inches, or at least 

 those that have grown out the farthest. Some of the pines, 

 especially the White Pine, do not need so much pruning to keep 

 them in good symmetrical shape. The hemlock, when grown out 

 upon an open space, needs no training at all, or at least this has 

 been the case with one, a very fine one, on my grounds. 



The Balsams have a great tendency, in this western country, to 

 run up like a church steeple, and this should be overcome by 



-10 



