1846. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



119 



HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT 



BY P. BARRY. 



Care of Newly Transpliinted Trees. 



Those who have planted trees during the last 

 month, should bear in mind the necessity of 

 careful culture during the ensuing summer. It 

 is too common for people to suppose their work 

 is done when the tree is placed with its roots in 

 the earth. This error proves fatal to thousands 

 of trees, annually, in our country. A tree re- 

 quires culture, as well as a hill of potatoes, or 

 corn, and is not less sensible of neglect. Under 

 good management an orchard will come into 

 bearing the third or fourth year after planting, 

 and the trees will have attained a good size, and 

 handsome appearance ; while, if neglected, they 

 will be miserable, crooked, mossy, unsightly 

 things. So you who have planted may choose 

 for yourselves. Meantime we take the liberty 

 of presenting for your consideration, the follow- 

 ing excellent chapter from " The Fruit Cultur- 

 ist," (a book which all fruit-growers ought to 

 possess,) on this subject : 



CULTIVATION OF TIIK SOIL. 



The importance of good transplanting has 

 been already noticed ; yet very few practice it 

 as it should be done. 



There is another department in the care of 

 fruit trees, still less known and appreciated, and 

 still more important ; perhaps not so much so in 

 itself as from its almost universal neglect, and 

 the consequent disastrous results. This is thor- 

 ough cultivation of the soil. For, of many hun- 

 dreds of trees which the writer has seen trans- 

 planted by various cultivators, more have been 



lost from NEGLECTED AFTER-CULTURE, tliaufrom 



all other causes put together. 



Persons who purchase young trees treat them 

 variously, as follows : 



1. Some kill them at once by drying them in 

 the sun or wind, or freezing them in the cold. 



2. Others kill them by crowding the roots into 

 small holes in hard ground, where they can n«v- 

 ^r flourish, and rarely live. 



3. Others set them out well, but that is all. 

 This done, they consider the whole work as fin- 

 ished. The trees are sufl^red to become choked 

 with grass, weeds, or crops of grain — s >me live 

 and linger, others die under the hardship ; or 

 else are broken off by cattle, or broken down by 

 the team which cultivates the ground. 



An intelligent friend purchased fifty very fine 

 peach trees, handsomely rooted, and of vigorous 

 growth ; they were well set out in a field con- 

 taining a fine crop of heavy clover and timothy. 

 The following summer was very dry ; and a lux- 

 uriant growth of meadow grass nearly obscured 

 them from sight. What was the consequence ? 

 Most of them necessarily perished. 



Another person bought sixty, of worse quality 



in growth ; he set them out well, and kept them 

 well cultivated with potatoes. He lost but one 

 tree ; and continuing to cultivate them with low 

 hoed crops, they now promise to afll:)rd lo: Is of 

 rich peaches, before the dead stubs of his r. ;igh- 

 bor, just mentioned, have disappeared from his 

 grounds. 



Another neighbor a year ago bought fifty good 

 trees. Passing his house late in summer, he 

 said to me, " I thought a crop of wheat one of 

 the best for young peach trees?" "Just tl;e re- 

 verse ; it is one of the worst — all sown crofs are 

 injurious, all low hoed ones beneficial." " Well, 

 answered he, " I have found it so — my fifty trees 

 all lived it is true, but I have lost one year of 

 their growth by my want of knowledge." His 

 trees were examined ; they were in an excel- 

 lent soil, and had been well set out. All the 

 rows but one had stood in a field of wheat ; that 

 one was hoed with a crop of potatoes. I'he re- 

 sult was striking. Of the trees that stood among 

 the wheat, some had made shoots the same year, 

 an inch long, some two inches, and a very few, 

 five or six inches. While on the other hand, on 

 nearly every one that grew with the potatoes, 

 new shoots a foot and a half could be found, and 

 on some the growth had been two feet, two and 

 a half, and three feet. Other cases have fur- 

 nished nearly as decisive conti'asts. 



An eminent cultivator of fine fruit, whose trees 

 have borne for many years, says in a late letter, 

 " My fruit garden would be worth twice as much 

 as it is, if the trees had been planted in thick 

 rows two rods apart so that I could have cultiva- 

 ted them with the plow. Unless fruit grows on 

 thrifty trees, we can form no proper judgment of 

 it. Some that we have cultivated this season, 

 after a long neglect, seem like ne^o kinds, and 

 the flavor is in proportion to the size. Bearing 

 trees often stand in thick grass, and poor crops 

 and poor fruit are the usual result ; and the nur- 

 seryman who sold them I's not unfrequently pro- 

 nounced a rogue for thus distributing worthless 

 kinds, when good cultivation would wholly change 

 their character. 



The " thick rorvs,^^ two rods apart, spoken of 

 in the preceding extract, may be composted of 

 trees which stand from six to ten feet apart in 

 the rows. This mode admits of deep and thor- 

 ough cultivation, and the team can pass freely in 

 one direction, until close to the row, where the 

 soil need not be turned up so deeply, or so as to 



Fig. 12. Fig. 13. 



injure the roots. Fig. 12 exhibits this mode of 

 planting; and Fig. 13, another mode, where the 

 trees are in hexagons or on the corners of equi- 

 lateral triangles, and are thus more equally diss- 



