66 SEEDLING PEOPAGATION OF VARIETIES. 



As early as the condition of the ground will permit, 

 the stocks so treated should be planted in nursery 

 rows, or bedded out. In bedding out, the weaker 

 stocks may be planted thickly, or only two or three 

 iuches apart, in rows, at a sufficient distance to permit 

 plowing between. The soil should be strong and 

 deep, and the plants receive thorough cultivation. 

 The nursery ground should be deeply worked, and 

 well manured a year previous to the planting of the 

 stocks, in order that the application of fresh and ^jower- 

 ful manures may not induce a succulent and unripe 

 growtli. 



The method of preparing a plot of ground planted 

 recently with stocks, may not be inappropriate to this 

 section. The soil was a sandy loam, half an acre of 

 it being filled with boulders, varying from the size of 

 a paving-stone to those weighing five hundred pounds 

 each. As these stones were reached by the plow, 

 they were removed by laborers with spades and crow- 

 bars, and placed on the surface of the plowed land. 

 When a furrow had been cleared of stones, the sub- 

 soil plow was drawn by a stout team in the bottom 

 of it, loosening the subsoil to the depth of six inches. 

 This loosened earth was now thrown out by the 

 common plow, and the hard soil again deepened by 

 the subsoil plow, until the whole depth of loosened 

 soil was from sixteen to eighteen inches. The ground 

 was then cross-j^lowed, harrowed smooth, furrows 

 drawn four feet apart, and deepened with a spade. 

 Thirty thousand pear stocks were then planted one 

 foot apart in these trenches. The w^hole expense 

 for labor was as follows : 



