PLANTING. 45 



thrusting the stake through, and also the risk of dama- 

 ging the branches in driving it home. It is also ready 

 for securing the tree immediately on planting, and one 

 other advantage, which is not the least, is that it enables 

 you to arrange the rows in perfectly straight lines at 

 leisure, and permits you to proceed rapidly with the plant- 

 ing when the trees are lifted, thus avoiding the un- 

 necessary exposure of the roots. If fall standards are to 

 be planted, the stakes should be seven feet long, allowing 

 eighteen inches to enter the ground, which, if it has 

 been properly prepared, will be loose to that depth. 

 They should be stout, and of some wood that will stand for 

 three years. If only small stakes are used they soon 

 decay ; at the end of the first season many will want 

 renewing, and they will require constant attention and 

 renewal for several years. It is therefore by far the 

 most economical plan to provide stout stakes in the first 

 place. 



The trees should then be laid out to the holes ready for 

 planting, and each tree should be carefully examined as 

 to its roots. In lifting from the nursery, all the larger 

 roots will be found to be more or less bruised by the cut- 

 ting of the spade. All these should be trimmed by a clean 

 cut with a sharp knife, and any long, coarse roots should 

 be shortened back. This clean cutting of the roots en- 

 ables them to quickly form new fibrous roots, and these 

 rapidly establish themselves in the soil. 



There is a right way and a wrong in performing even 

 this simple operation. Never hold the tree in such a 

 way that you cut the larger roots with an outside or 

 vertical cut, but cut on the under-side from the centre of 

 the tree towards the outside. The cut portion is then 

 underneath the tree, and lies flatly and firmly on the 



