160 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



year 1853, and coiitiiiuecl it for three years, filling up tlie 

 vacant places in the months of May and June. I think I 

 succeeded best in transplanting. It will do to transplant any 

 time in the months of May or June. 



Statement of Dr. Cyrus Morton, of Halifax. 



The lot of pine trees, that I have entered for a premium, I 

 commenced planting in the spring of 1848 ; the last I planted in 

 1856. The ground on which these trees are growing is gravelly 

 and unproductive. The first I planted was on land that would 

 produce nothing but mullein and tinkham weed ; indeed, my 

 object was to have something growing to hide the nakedness of 

 the land. I at first planted some three or four hundred, the 

 latter part of May. I found not one in twenty of these died ; 

 in October following, I planted a few hundred more. I went 

 through the same process with them, and nineteen out of twenty 

 died. I find by this experiment that the time for planting ever- 

 greens is in the spring, late, say the last of May ; for since then 

 I have taken that time to plant them, and have invariably been 

 successful. My modus operandi is to furrow the ground in the 

 same manner as for planting corn, only wider apart. I select 

 trees of three of four years' growth. I think these are as sure 

 to live and I get the start a few years in the growth. I get 

 the trees from our old pastures where they are exposed to the 

 sun. If taken from the woods where they grow in the shade, 

 if they live, they will be stinted, and it will take two or three 

 years to get them acclimated. I take them up with a shovel, 

 and the small roots of the pine are so numerous that you can 

 handle them roughly and not detach the soil from them. T 

 have no dat a at which I can arrive at the expense per acre for 

 planting. It depends altogether whether you get the trees near 

 by your lot, or at a distance. The last half-acre I i)lanted I got 

 my trees in an adjoining pasture. My hired man with a horse 

 furrowed the ground, and with a horse and wagon collected the 

 trees and planted them in one day, so the whole expense for 

 planting that half-acre did not exceed two dollars. Since 

 planting I have done nothing to the lot, or the trees, only to 

 keep it fenced to prevent injury from cattle. I measured some 

 trees of the first planting that are more than twenty-five feet 



