lS46.] Layering of Fruit Trees. 1 19 



have given for doing it is " late in the fall or early in the spring." 

 These I admit are the best times for doing the work, but I have 

 followed it successfully through the season. It will of course be 

 understood that a tree grown in this way, from the limb of a 

 graft, will be a graft, root and branch; and will be filled with 

 limbs, like other young trees, from the ground up. With these I 

 commence what I term tree layering. I dig trenches for my nur- 

 sery rows, about ten inches deep by twelve wide, and four feet 

 apart. I then place my layer tree in the trench, and cover it all 

 except the tip of each limb with fine earth. The limbs of a tree 

 buried in this way do not need cutting to make them take root, as 

 in the case of limb layering. From each of these limbs I get a 

 tree. They will commence growing about as soon as the tree 

 that is transplanted to the orchard, and are not near as likely to 

 die; because tliey do not have the severe exposure to the wind 

 and sun that the orchard tree has, and by which it is often pre- 

 vented from taking root. 



Soon after the little trees commence growing from the limbs 

 thus buried in the trench, the returning sap, not liking its under- 

 ground journey back to the old root, throws out a set of roots 

 from the tender wood of the end of the limb, near the top of the 

 ground, by which the young tree is afterwards nourished. 



When I first commenced this kind of layering, I took some of 

 the straight limbs that were from one to two feet long, and turn- 

 ed them directly up from the stock of the tree, considering them 

 as trees so far grown; but the wood near the butt of the limb was 

 probably too hard to let the roots shoot out from it; and the sap 

 (not being checked as in the case of the limb that was buried) 

 kept up its circulation M'ith the old roots. Consequently, when I 

 took up my trees for selling, this kind, although large and hand- 

 some, was worthless for want of roots. A tree that is buried in 

 the trench as it should be, to the ends of the limbs, does not seem 

 to grow at all after the young trees above it have taken root for 

 themselves. 



Trees propagated in this way make about the same growth in a 

 year that those do which are grafted. My largest cherry and 

 apple trees of last year's growth, measure over five feet; and the 

 season before, I had a still larger growth. Trees grown in this 

 way are many of them of a medium size for transplanting at two 

 yeais old; yet as they stand thick in the row, and are all con- 

 nected in the ground, they should not be disturbed until the third 

 year. Then the whole row can be taken up, and the nurseryman 

 can accommodate his customers with large, medium, or small 

 sized trees; and should there be any that are crooked or too small 

 to sell, they can be kept to re-stock the row that has just been 

 cleared. The space just cleared should be filled with the same 



