172 THE NtTKSERY. 



Hickory hoops are sometimes employed, and answer very 

 well. Packed in this way, trees may go any distance 

 with safety. The season of the year modifies the mode 

 of packing. The roots should always, for a long journey, 

 be immersed in a thin mud before being packed, as this 

 excludes the air ; but in the fall, this mud should be dry 

 before the package is made up, and the moss should con- 

 tain very little moisture. In a frosty time, the less moist- 

 ure there is about the roots the better ; but an abundance 

 of straw should be used to exclude the air and frost. 



Heeling-in. When trees are taken up, and can neither 

 be packed nor planted at once, they are laid in by the 

 roots in trenches ; the longer they have to remain in this 

 situation the better it should be performed. Trees are 

 often wintered in this way, and, if the trenches are dug 

 deep, and the roots well spread out, and deeply covered, 

 they are perfectly safe. It should be done, in such cases, 

 with almost as much care as the final planting of a tree. 

 When great bundles of the roots are huddled in together, 

 and only three or four inches of earth thrown over them, 

 both air and frost act upon them, and they sustain serious 

 injury. Tender trees, likely to suffer from the freezing of 

 the shoots, should be laid in an inclined, almost horizon- 

 tal, position, and be covered with brush, evergreen boughs, 

 or something that will break the violence of the wind 

 and frost. Straw should not be used, as it attracts vermin. 

 Some rough litter or manure should also be thrown around 

 the roots, and in this way the most tender of all our fruit 

 trees may be wintered with safety. 



