48 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



upper soil from the most convenient acre of land near your or- 

 chard, and mulch or build up under the branches with it. You 

 need have no fears in mulching or building up two feet or more 

 around the trunk and as far as the branches extend. If you are 

 an unbeliever in it try it and note the results, and you will soon 

 become a believer. While trees are young, or before arriving at 

 a bearing condition, plow and cultivate between the rows, but 

 without disturbing the branches or the soil under them. Thus 

 planting with annual crops, as beans, potatoes, or bulbous roots — 

 as they grow and ripen late in the season — your trees get the first 

 share with which to ripen their fruit, wood and bark. 



Get Maine Trees if Poi^sible. Speaking from my own experi- 

 ence, I prefer to have my trees grown in Maine, and as near home 

 as possible, and have the soil prepared and everything in readi- 

 ness, so that they may be set in the shortest possible time. With 

 proper care, trees thus removed will scarcely receive any percep- 

 tible check in growth. This is not always practicable. We 

 should be careful, however, to get our trees from a reliable nur- 

 sery man. 



It has been truly said, that "that genus, the tree-pedler, should 

 be classed in the same catagory with those other enemies of the 

 fruit culturist, the curculio, canker-worm, borer, &c." 



Large sized young trees. There has been a great demand for 

 extra sized trees for some years past. This is all wrong. In order 

 to grow these large sized trees, they have to be forced by stimu- 

 lating manures, especially during tlie last years of growth in the 

 nursery. Then we are deceived by their fine appearance, having 

 large, beautiful tops, while the roots are few and straggling; and 

 even these, in removing from the nursery are often cut short, leav- 

 ing few if any fibrous roots, and when planted out in orchard form 

 they require the first season to recuperate, and have received a 

 check from which they can never fully recover. Medium sized, 

 stocky trees, with well ripened wood and bark, and many fibrous 

 roots, will be found much more reliable and satisfactory than 

 larger and older trees, and will come into bearing sooner, and are 

 less liable to disease. The younger the trees, the more roots can 

 be preserved when removing them from the nursery — better pay 

 the same price for them. This is true in my experience, for I can 

 soon grow a handsome top if I have a fibrous rooted tree to begin 

 with. 



