SELECTION AND PLANTING. 233 



be likely to find the specimens that suit his fancy, and he 

 will mark them for removal. 



DIGGING. At the proper season, and for most kinds 

 this is at the fall of the leaf, the trees should be dug from 

 the ground. This operation, as usually and necessarily 

 conducted in large establishments, has to be done expedi- 

 tiously and with less care than the amateur will be dis- 

 posed to bestow upon this very important operation ; and 

 it sometimes happens that he will offer to pay the nur- 

 seryman a bonus for the privilege of digging his own 

 trees with his own hands. 



In performing this operation he will be very careful to 

 avoid mutilating the roots with the -spade, or by using 

 more force than is absolutely necessary in lifting the loos- 

 ened tree from its bed after the roots have been pretty 

 thoroughly liberated from the soil. He will follow the 

 directions given under this head in the appropriate section 

 of the chapter on The Nursery. The importance of pud- 

 dling the roots as soon as the trees are dug, cannot be too 

 forcibly impressed upon the planter and nurseryman ; its 

 value to the trees is so great as a protection of the tender 

 covering of the roots from exposure to the blighting in- 

 fluences of light, wind, and frost, that the trifling labor 

 and expense involved in the operation, should not receive 

 a moment's consideration. 



A puddle hole should be within convenient reach of the 

 nursery-rows where the digging is in progress, and each 

 sort should be taken to it as soon as dug. The excava- 

 tion should be about a foot deep, or more, for large plants, 

 and as wide as is necessary to receive all the roots of the 

 trees to be puddled. A plentiful supply of water should 



