CULTIVATION AND PROPAGATION 27 



or the region what species are most hkely to thrive; usually it 

 is not expected to obtain fine specimen trees quickly on such 

 places, if at all; if possible the land should be first improved by 

 good tillage, cover-cropping, and fertilizing. 



In the way of actual tillage, little is required for the conifers, 

 although they profit by it when young. The conifers are 

 essentially lawn subjects, and sod is the natural setting. With 

 the present scarcity of labor, however, tall grass and weeds 

 are likely to get the start, making the place to look untidy and 

 to increase hazards of fire. The use of the mowing-machine 

 will greatly help, when scythes and lawn-mowers are out of the 

 question. Once well established, the evergreen plantation 

 should require less care than many or even most other kinds 

 of landscape plantings. 



Speaking of experience with conifers in southern Connecti- 

 cut, George P. Brett writes: "I have tried a mixture of fine 

 bone dust, potash, and nitrate of soda as a fertilizer for ever- 

 greens, but not with verj^ satisfactory results, well-rotted cow- 

 manure being the best solid fertilizer for these trees in my 

 experience. But for the tree not yet fully established and for 

 the tree which is ailing, nothing is so good as a liquid manure 

 applied three or four times during the first month or two after 

 transplanting, trees apparently almost dead having come back 

 to life again under this treatment. Last winter, for example, 

 I removed a black spruce of some twenty-five feet in height 

 from the woods, and we thought we had lost it when all its 

 needles fell ofiF in the spring, but under this treatment it grew 

 a new crop of needles and now promises to be as satisfactory 

 as trees of this kind usually are. All manures and fertilizers, 

 unfortunately, greatly increase the growth of weeds and grass 

 at the foot of the trees, choking and eventually destroying the 

 beauty of the lower branches, and the removal of such growth 



