CHAPTER in 



PLANTING THE TREES 



"Come, let us plant the apple tree. 

 Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; 

 Wide let its hollow bed be made; 

 There gently lay the roots, and there 

 Sift the dark mould with kindly care." 



— Bryant. 



Possibly there are persons who would order 

 a lot of building material, have it delivered to 

 their farms and then proceed to see what sort 

 of houses they could assemble from the pile, 

 without first working the thing out on paper. 

 I say there possibly are such persons but I 

 doubt if they are numerous enough to be really 

 dangerous. On the other hand, I suspect that 

 the majority of American orchards are planted 

 on no particular plan whatever. The owner 

 orders a bunch of trees — about what he thinks 

 he needs — and after they arrive he goes to the 

 field to see what sort of an orchard he can 

 make out of them. 



Orchard plans are seldom worked out in such 

 detail that the owner knows beforehand ex- 

 actly how many trees he will need. This in fact 

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