PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS UPON TREE-PLANTING. 53 



face soils of Iowa and Illinois appear to be well adapted to this class of 

 trees.^ He remarks : 



Extensive plantings of pines and junipers may be made with perfect safety on sandy 

 soils, and those having a thin layer of porous surface soil. But on such soils I would 

 not advise any one to put out plants of less size than 1 foot in height; 2-foot plants 

 would do better. Excessively dry seasons are almost certainly fatal to small plants on 

 such soils. Puddling the roots with clay mortar is always advisable when planting 

 out evergreens, being sure to have roots perfectly wet when placed in position for 

 covering with dirt. In such soils, too, it is best to set deeper than the plants stood in 

 nursery. In moist localities arbor vitaes and spruces are perfectly at home. 



In the discussion of this paper the opinion was expressed that the 

 Norway spruce was the best ornamental evergreen for Eastern Iowa. 

 The white pine had proved healthy, but the Scotch and Austrian pines 

 had been badly infested with a kind of aphis, which injured the trees. 



In dry soils, evergreens had suffered from drought, but on porous soils 

 they had generally been grown with success. The relatively dry air of 

 the West, as compared with that of Europe, appeared to account for 

 the great difference observed with respect to the locations and conditions 

 under which evergreens will thrive. It was remarked by one who had 

 seen planting operations in Europe that — 



Wherever a larch, spruce, or pine can be started, (even with rock near to the surface,) 

 the plants grow with a luxuriance we can never attain here under the most favorable 

 conditions. The forester there goes to bis worli of planting coniferous seedlings with 

 the plants wrapped up in a dry rag. He makes a hole with a tool provided for the 

 purpose, sticks in the plant without regard to shape or position of the roots. The 

 cavity is closed by a movement of the tool and a motion of the foot, and the work is 

 done. Yet the plants rarely fail to grow, and that with a vigor wonderful to behold 

 on such sterile soil. 



EVERGREEN PLANTING — METHODS AND ADVICE OF MR. R. DOUGLAS. 



Mr. Eobert Douglas, of Waukegan, 111., in a lecture before the Kan- 

 sas State Horticultural Society, sums up the whole substance of success 

 in transplanting evergreens in a few words: " Plant early in the spring ; 

 never allow the roots to become dry, and pack the cround tight, so tbat 

 they cannot shake about or be moved by the winds." He would plant as 

 soon as the frost is out of the ground, (first i)uddling the roots as soon 

 as received), and plant a little deeper than they had grown in the nur- 

 sery. The center of the hole should be elevated to set the tree on, and 

 the roots should be spread out and filled in compactly, and particularly 

 under the tree, so that it will not sink. 



In his own practice he sowed the seeds in the spring, until May, in 

 beds 4 feet wide, broadcast, and raked in. The young plants must be 

 shaded, the first year at least, by lath, cloth, or brush, and his former 

 practice was to lay frames of lath, with spaces as wide as the strips, over 

 the seed-beds. Another, and by some regarded as a better screen, is a 

 frame-work of poles raised upon posts about G feet high, and covered 

 with brush. He would bed out the plants from 3 to G inches apart in 

 the rows, and the rows 12 to 18 inches apart, shading the first season, 

 and working with the hoe. The earth should be drawn up to the plants 

 at the last hoeing of the season, to prevent heaving out in winter. In 

 tw^o years from planting they will be nice stocky trees, averaging about 

 1 foot in height, and may then be planted in nursery rows, 3 or 4 feet 

 apart, or in shelter-belts and hedges. Three-year-old plants, 6 to 9 inches 



Transactions of Iowa Horticultural Society 1875, j), 124. 



