TAKING UP AND SENDING TO MARKET. 63 



Rochester, New York, the first of October will be found 

 about the average, while at Dover, Delaware, it will be 

 four weeks later. The true criterion in any place is when 

 the leaves will rub off the trees by the hand. But it will 

 not al ways do to wait even so long ; for if the season 

 has been wet and warm, the young trees will continue to 

 grow and hold their leaves until the winter sets in. 



When the season has arrived, a shanty or tent of loose 

 boards is erected on the edge of the nursery. Here are 

 the head-quarters for the time being. Here are deposited 

 the materials, the tools, labels, etc., and from here issue 

 the orders to the workmen, and here the trees are brought 

 to be labeled, packed, and marked. 



On the morning the work begins, the foremen who 

 have been selected and engaged to do the work, and they 

 always should be and mostly are, expert, careful men, re- 

 pair to the tent for instructions. The proprietor or over- 

 seer now opens his order-book at the first page, and reads, 

 "Fifteen hundred Hale's Early;" "Five hundred Early 

 York," etc., until he goes through the order. While he 

 is reading, the foreman or leader has been taking down 

 the names and numbers on a small memorandum book for 

 the purpose. When the overseer is through reading, the 

 foreman has them all down, and immediately commences 

 repeating the order from the beginning, while the overseer 

 is carefully watching to see that it is exact. Being found 

 so, the foreman proceeds to the nursery. .followed by his 

 assistants, where the requisite number of each variety is 

 carefully taken up with the spade, and left lying in their 

 respective rows, if to be bundled and tied by the same 

 hands; but if other hands follow, then they are tied by 

 the latter in bundles and labeled. If the same men who 

 take up are to bundle, then the trees are all taken up first, 

 and when this is done, bundled in the same way. The 

 label consists of a small piece of light wood, about an 



