1*ACKING, PRUNING, PROTECTION, ETC. 27 



Suckers, are underground runners — often the result of careless 

 cultivation in breaking off roots. They should always be destroyed, 

 but never replanted, not even the Frost Gage plum, proving healthy 

 when so propagated. 



CHAPTER III. 



TRANSPLANTING TREES HOW, W^HEN ; PACKING, CARE OF WHEN RE- 

 CEIVED; PRUNING TIME WHEN, HOW, THE TOPS, THE ROOTS; LABELS 



FOR ; PROTECTION FROM SHEEP, RABBITS, ETC. ; TRAINING ; FORM OF 

 TOUNG TREES. 



Notwithstanding our people are, as a nation, " planters of trees," 

 yet how few, comparatively, ever succeed in carrying the existence 

 of trees planted, beyond the first season ; or if a second year, only 

 with a puny sickly habit, anything but satisfactory. The first thing, 

 in the removal of trees, should be care not to destroy the roots in 

 digging. Small trees are less liable to injury from such cause than 

 large ones, but too often have we seen them wrenched out of the 

 ground, by the strong arm of man, apparently not to injury of roots, 

 but really they were cracked through every portion, and all the 

 pores through which the circulation of sap is had, broken and in- 

 jured, often as much or more to injury of tree, than if one half the 

 roots had been cut off. Again, have we seen trees cut out wnth 

 spades, leaving only about four to six inches of main root, and a few 

 small fibres. Such trees require a whole year's nursing, with severe 

 shortening-in of limbs, to recover anything like their native vigor, 

 and are not worth, to the planter, over one-half price of trees well 

 and carefully dug, with roots nearly entire. 



Preparing the Soil. If an orchard is to be planted, and on soil 

 retentive of moisture, or, in other words — level clayey soil — it 

 should first be thoroughly subsoil ed, at least twenty-two inches deep ; 

 it should then have sufiicient number of under drains, that no sur- 

 plus water would ever remain on it over forty-eight hours. Digging 

 deep holes should never be practised, but the whole soil should be 

 made of fine tilth, and if the ground is well drained, or naturally 

 dry, dig broad spaces, four feet diameter, and one foot deep. If the 

 ground is not drained and naturally wet — a location and condition 

 which should never be adopted— let the planting be made by plac- 

 ing the tree on the level ground, and earthing up around it. Upon 

 the level prairies this coui:*e has been found most successful, and at 

 times, without even removing the sod beneath the tree. 



Many suppose, that a tree grown in nursery on sandy soil, will-^not 



