64 THE NURSERY AND THE ORCHARD. 



a fruit tree will do well when its roots are placed in a 

 hole in the unbroken ground hardly large enough to 

 receive them, then why will not a grain of corn produce 

 a fine stalk and well developed ears when planted in 

 the hard ground, with scarcely enough dirt to cover it? 

 This process of removing a tree from one position to 

 another is applied to seedlings which are usually taken 

 from the seed beds to nursery rows when one year old, 

 and to nursery trees which are removed to the orchard 

 when from one to three years old from the bud or graft. 



The proper time for transplanting at the South is soon 

 after the first killing frost, thus giving the trees time to 

 become established in their new position before growth 

 begins in spring. It is one of the requisites to success- 

 ful transplanting to make a thorough preparation of the 

 soil. 



It is an excellent plan to sow peas on the ground in- 

 tended for an orchard, and turn them under in early fall 

 with a two-horse plow followed by a subsoil. Holes are 

 dug three feet wide and two feet deep, to be filled with 

 surface soil, thoroughly mixed with about a peck of good 

 cotton seed and stable manure compost to each hole. 

 Do not let any strong manure come in contact with the 

 roots. 



Many failures in transplanting result from careless 

 digging. It is an easy matter to take up small seedlings 

 with their roots almost entire, but as the roots of a tree 

 extend on each side to a distance about equal to the 

 height, it is impossible, in digging trees five or six feet 

 high from nursery rows, to avoid leaving a large portion 

 of the roots in the ground. 



In nurseries, trees are dug very rapidly by thrusting a 



