years to buy whips, or one-year-old trees, of good stock at 

 very low prices, at 10 cents or less, and I have set them in 

 nursery rows in heavy soil for two or three years, until they 

 are rather oversize, when they can be transplanted to the field 

 with plenty of dirt on the roots, and hardl}^ stop groM'ing. 

 This method saves work in caring for them. 



Last spring I told my son, who was then fifteen years old, 

 that I would set one thousand apple trees for him if he would 

 take care of them when I could not, and as he was happy to 

 agree to do so we put them in (about half of them grown for 

 a time in our garden or nursery, and the balance picked up 

 from New York nurseries) any size to be found, mostly very 

 small, as the supply was very limited. Holes were dug as soon 

 as the frost was out, while digging was easy (hardly half the 

 work it would have been when the ground had dried out and 

 hardened), 2 feet across and 15 inches or more deep, over 10 

 acres or more of our big grass field. The sod was placed one 

 side, the black loam another side, and the yellow loam on 

 another side, and, to be a little extra good to the young trees, 

 we cleaned up the loam from some old hotbeds, quite a num- 

 ber of cords of it, and put a half bushel or so in the bottom of 

 each hole. Digging holes cost 6 cents each and was begun 

 March 12 and all dug in March, something we couldn't do 

 this year with our heavy coat of snow and ice, showing how 

 seasons vary. It is but a few years since I plowed for eighteen 

 days in January on this same land. After this loam was put 

 in, the trees were moved from our nursery, and set the first 

 week in April. The dark loam was thrown in first, then the 

 sod reversed and well trod, and last the yellow loam. 



After writing, telegraphing and finally telephoning to western 

 New York nurseries to get delivery of trees paid for months 

 before, I got whips when I had bought two-year-olds, and got 

 them into the ground May 13, with five weeks of good time 

 lost. These small stored-over-winter trees looked very slim 

 and cheap beside our 8 and 9 foot ones, but by wetting the 

 roots well and giving them extra care they have lived and 

 started fairly well and are apparently true to name, which is 

 after all the one great point in putting out trees. One can 

 forgive the nurserymen almost anything except substitution or 



