52 THE APPLE CULTURIST. 



carted about town all day, exposed to drying winds and 

 sunshine, and frequently to cold and frosty nights, which 

 will destroy the vitality of every root. We have often 

 travelled on steamboats and cars, where we have seen fruit- 

 trees without any protection, piled in the open air, where 

 the roots have dried to death in a few hours. 



A farmer purchases, for example, a supply of apple-trees 

 to be sent one or two hundred miles. As orders at the 

 nursery may be large, the operation of digging must com- 

 mence early in the season. The trees are dug up before 

 the frost is really out of the ground ; and before they can 

 reach their destination, they are often frozen and dried, al- 

 ternately, for two weeks. The great wonder is, that those 

 who attempt to produce orchards with purchased trees suc- 

 ceed half as well as they do. But immense numbers of 

 failures in all parts of the country show conclusively that 

 there are grave faults somewhere. 



Another objection to nursery trees is the fact that, in 

 many nurseries, the young trees have been forced into an 

 unusually large and tender growth by frequent applications 

 of stimulating manures. The nurseryman produces trees 

 to sell. He has no further concern than to prepare for the 

 market such trees as will supply an active demand at an 

 exorbitant price. Hence he piles on the manure, and pro- 

 duces in the shortest possible period the largest possible 

 growth. He will not be responsible for the results after 

 the trees have been transplanted into an orchard. Beauti- 

 ful young trees removed from a nursery, where the soil is 

 as rich as a fertile carrot-bed, to land of ordinary fertility, or 

 to a poor soil, will usually receive a " set-back," or " stunt," 

 from which they seldom recover. 



The foregoing suggestions will furnish sufficient reasons 

 for starting young fruit-trees of any variety of fruit on 

 such ground as may be chosen for the orchard, that they 



