798 BAY COUNTY, MICHIGAN. 



plant when the right time comes. When my orchard ground 

 is ready, as soon as possible, I open my boxes and sort and 

 place the trees in a trench already prepared, cover the roots, 

 and wet them thoroughly. I now make a hole in the ground 

 about the size of a barrel, fill it with water, and mix a batter 

 of the clay subsoil. When I have properly trimmed my trees 

 of broken limbs and roots, I dip them into this batter and plant 

 as soon as I can, putting the rich earth from the top earth 

 pile around the roots nicely and firmly, and making the ground 

 hard all around the tree. My work is now done, though 

 I am careful to set the tree a little lower in the ground than 

 it was in the nurser}^ 



I plant corn in my orchard, and give it and the trees good 

 cultivation through the year. I remove the corn and stalks, 

 and plow up to the trees late in the Fall, leaving the dead 

 furrow equi-distant from the rows of trees. Then I put down 

 an under drain in my dead furrow, after making it deeper, 

 — a saving of much labor and expense in digging. My land 

 is now ready for corn the next year. This corn serves to shade 

 the bodies of the trees from the scorching rays of the sun, and 

 the wind during the first two years. After I have finished 

 planting the trees, I take a pail of soft soap and a brush and 

 paint the trees from the ground up into the limbs, and do this 

 again in July. By this means I destroy any borers or their eggs. 

 This same practice applies successfully to all trees except ever- 

 greens, and perhaps it would benefit them, though I have never 

 tried it. Maple, and all other shade and ornamental trees, I 

 have treated in this fashion, and I have had clean limbs and 

 green bark on all my trees, and they have got the start of the 

 borers every time. It is my opinion that there is something 

 in the soap that supplies a lack in the soil, for a few years at 

 least, till the roots have reached far enough from the tree to 

 find what it needs. 



SOIL AND TIMBER. 



My farm was very heavy timbered with oak, beech, maple, 

 elm, basswood, soft maple and black ash. One part was 



