8 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION Cir. 78 



a frame of any convenient shape, leaving- openings about an inch 

 wide between the laths. The trees may be planted rather close 

 together but not close enough to crowd in the next two years. 

 After two years they may be moved to the nursery row where they 

 should grow two or three years before they are moved to the per- 

 manent location. Even then it is a good plan to plant them rather 

 closely for mutual protection or to plant them among deciduous 

 trees, thinning out the latter as the evergreens grow. If planted 

 thickly, some of the evergreens will need to be thinned out later. 

 If handled as suggested for transplanting large trees, those thinned 

 out can often be used in other places. Evergreens should be moved 

 early in the spring just as the buds open. Patience is necessary 

 but the reward is more than sufficient. Single trees twenty-four to 

 thirty inches high may often be moved from the timber to the yard 

 if carefully dug and planted, and shaded for two or three years with 

 a lattice screen. 



Details given elsewhere for setting out trees apply equally well 

 here. Deciduous trees from the woods should be more severely top 

 pruned when first set out than those from nurseries. Evergreens 

 are usually not pruned when moved but it is well to watch for 

 double leaders and cut one out. 



MOVING LARGE TREES 



Rather large trees, if they have been transplanted once while 

 young, are often successfully moved. In such cases it is best to 

 dig a trench around the tree in the fall. This trench should be 

 three feet deep and several feet from the base of the tree. The 

 ball of earth thus marked out can be partly severed from the earth 

 beneath. The trench can be filled with straw or similar material 

 and the ball of earth left to freeze. Before the. ground thaws out 

 the following spring the straw is removed and the tree with the 

 frozen earth moved to its new location. The hole to receive the 

 tree must be prepared in the fall and kept from freezing by filling- 

 with straw or coarse manure. It is a good plan to move just as 

 much earth as possible with the tree. Evergreens up to six or eight 

 feet in height may be moved in this manner. The ball of earth 

 should have a diameter of at least two-thirds the height of the 

 tree. Even trees moved in thi-s way should be shaded for one or 

 two summers. 



