HOW TO PLANT. 73 



there is or is likely to be superabundant moisture, plant 

 the trees thirty feet apart, to give the sun a better chance 

 to reach the ground. On high lands set your trees at 

 twenty-five feet. 



And now, the ground prepared and spaced off, you are 

 ready to dig your holes. The depth and diameter of these 

 will depend on the size of your trees. Give plenty of 

 room, and do not crowd the roots or curl them up. Throw 

 the top soil to one side, the subsoil to the other ; if you 

 have well-rotted stable manure, compost, muck, or com- 

 mercial fertilizer ready, mix it sparingly, half with the 

 subsoil half with the top ; but this is not necessary. 



The removal of the tree from the nursery to the grove 

 is not the simple thing many conceive it to be that is, if 

 it be properly done. Let your trees be improperly handled 

 while being dug and set out, and if they grow at all it will 

 be a sickly, stunted growth, that will be a perpetual re- 

 minder to their owners of the old and truthful adage, 

 ''Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well." 



The work of taking up and transplanting trees whose 

 roots are chiefly fibrous, like those of the citrus family, is 

 one requiring time, care, and patience. Don't try to do 

 too much at one time or you will repent it. 



In digging trees preserve every root and rootlet that is 

 possible. If they are to be carried to any distance or kept 

 for several days out of the ground, it will pay well to puddle 

 the roots in other words, dip them in a paste made of 

 clay and sand, made just thin enough to let the finest 

 rootlets be plunged in it without breaking, and yet thick 

 enough to cling to them like a close-fitting garment. 

 Roots thus protected, put away in a shady place, and 

 watered so that they do not get dry, will keep in good 

 order for two or three days. Under no circumstances 

 must the tender rootlets of the citrus family be permitted 



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