TAKING UP TREES FKOM THE NURSEKY. 153 



that holds nails well. If the trees are composed of seve- 

 ral varieties, they should be tied in small parcels of four 

 to six each, according to the size. The sides and ends 

 of the box should be well lined with straw, and the 

 roots bedded in moss and the tops in straw, to prevent 

 chafing. 



If the box be large, two rows of cleats are necessary — • 

 one in the middle and one in the top, to hold the trees in 

 their place and to keep the box from spreading. "When 

 the box is nailed up, it should be banded at both ends 

 with iron hoops, fastened with wrought nails. 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 contain very little mois- 

 ture. In a frosty time the less moisture 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 cannot be 

 either packed or 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 perfonned. 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 thro^vn 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 off the violence of the wind 

 7* 



