THE GENESEE FAEMER. 



285 



FAILURE OF NUESERY TREES. 



I HAVE read with^mucli interest the different ar- 

 ticles that have appeared in your excellent journal, 

 on the failure of nursery trees. The information 

 which has been elicited will prove useful to many, 

 and no doubt save the life of many a valuable tree. 

 I do not think, however, that the root of these 

 has been reached by any one ; at least, I have not 

 observed any opinion offered that I should deem a 

 satisfactory solution of the question, and therefore 

 beg to offer one more. 



I may say that I am in the practice of planting 

 thousauds of nursery-raised trees every year, of 

 ages varying from three to ten, and received from 

 distances of from twenty to three thousand miles. 

 The reasons given for failure, so far, are, that the 

 trees have been badly lifted, badly packed, badly 

 transported, or badly planted, — the last including 

 improper soil or situation. That trees are liable to 

 be injured by all these is a well known fact ; but 

 the very act of lifting a tree is in itself an injury, 

 and death does not necessarily follow, Neither 

 does it necessarily follow that because a tree has 

 been badly lifted, badly packed, a long while on the 

 way, or badly treated generally, it must therefore 

 die. If a tree reaches the owner alive, and it dies 

 afterwards, it is through unskillful management on 

 his part. 



If I go to a wood and select say a ten year oak 

 sapling, preserve every branch, and remove it with 

 the greatest care, the chance is 70 per cent, against 

 its living at all, and 90 per cent, against its doing 

 well ; but if I lop off all the branches, leaving but 

 the "bare pole," it will grow, and sometimes do 

 well. If cut sti'l more, say to the surface of the 

 ground, you may leave the " stump" to broil in the 

 sun for a week before planting, and even if the 

 stump have, like a " badly lifted nursery tree," all 

 its roots cut off close to the "tree," it will live and 

 throw up good suckers, and make, with some help 

 from art, a good tree. This is called skill, and is 

 founded on the knowledge that the branches are 

 supported by the roots, and that if there be a 

 greater demand on the roots than they are in a 

 condition to supply, the tree must die. It is the 

 province of the buyer to see to this. He can judge 

 when he receives his trees, by a comparison of the 

 roots with the branches, whether the proportion is 

 much out of order, and he can proceed in some- 

 thing like the foUowmg numerical mode of reason- 

 ing : — First, if a tree is not transplanted it does not 

 die, because the relative positions of roots and 

 branches are not disturbed. Secondly, when trans- 

 planted very carefully, and replanted immediately, 

 its growth will yet be checked a little ; pruning a 

 little will restore the balance. Thirdly, if taken 

 up with few roots, prune still more. And fourthly, 

 if, in addition to all this, the trees get dry from bad 

 packing or otherwise, prune still more. And thus 

 the planter will see that the rule obtains, that no 

 tree shoidd be transplanted without having its 

 branches pruned to a degree corresponding to the 

 injury to its roots. 



This is my own practice, and I rarely lose a tree. 

 There is nothing lost by the operation. On the 

 contrary, trees so pruned will be stouter and larger 

 at the end of the first season's growth, than un- 

 pruned ones of the same age. I planted 250 stand- 

 ard pear trees this spring, obtained three hundred 



miles northeast of me. About 100 of these did 

 not get pruned, through an oversight ; though they 

 are all alive, no one would compare them now, 

 either in size or general health, with the pruned 

 ones. At the same time, and from the same place, 

 I obtained a large stock of dwarf pears. After I 

 had them planted and pruned, and they had burst 

 into fuU leaf, I wanted to plant six in another part 

 of the grounds ; they were taken up, still more se- 

 verely pruned, and to-day I measured shoots of 

 this season's growth three feet long. 



I again repeat that if a tree dies, it is in the main 

 the fault of the purchaser, in being unskilled in the 

 "art and mystery" of pruning. A tree may be 

 dug up badly, or replanted badly, but all the long 

 list of "badlys" may be remedied while life re- 

 mains to work on. oultivatoe. 



ABOUT SPADING GARDEN BEDS. 



Having "laid down the shovel," or spade, rather, 

 with which I have been digging up a plot of ground 

 for autumn planting of strawberries, I take up the 

 pen to offer you some suggestions on the subject. 



Spading was probably the original method of 

 preparing the ground for the seed — though the 

 implement, no doubt, stood far back of its present 

 convenient character ; and the same process, prop- 

 erly performed, now completes that work most 

 thoroughly and perfectly. The best way to do it, 

 is a question of some interest to all gardeners. 



To commence, take a first spade full from the 

 corner of the plot to be dug up, and place it in any 

 depression of the surface ; next invert two spade- 

 fuls in the room occupied by the first, and proceed 

 diagonally across the plot. Push the spade in 

 nearly perpendicularly, and in parallel rows, from 

 six to eight inches apart, according to the nature 

 of the soil. Lift out the earth moved carefully, 

 and turn it completely upside down, so that the 

 earth from below may lie on the surface ; break aU 

 large clods, and remove stones, if any are turned to 

 the liglit in the operation. Some begin at one side 

 of the piece to dig, and throw the first row taken 

 out to the opposite side of the piece ; but this re- 

 quires more labor, without any special advantages. 



Lazy gardeners push in the spade at a large an- 

 gle, and make wider rows, getting over more sur- 

 face but doing the work less thoroughly — only half 

 as deep, and leaving a greater portion of the upper 

 surface, exhausted by the previous crop, at or near 

 the top. Or they merely push in the spade, and 

 give it a twist to loosen, without lifting and invert- 

 ing the soil. It is rather an injury than a benefit 

 to break every clod fine, unless the crop is to be 

 planted at once. It is much better to lie as loose 

 as possible, that air may have better access to th© 

 depths of the spaded earth. 



Spading, properly performed, turns the soil up- 

 side down more completely than any other process, 

 burying the weeds to decay instead of again sprout- 

 ing to plague the gardener, In light lands, the 

 earth is the richest at the bottom of the cultured 

 soil ; the juices of the manure, having leached down 

 the previous season, are brought by the spade again 

 to the surface. The soil is more completely pul- 

 verized, and the manure more thoroughly inter- 

 mixed, than by another implement, and hence bet- 

 ter prepared for garden crops. j. h, b. 



