28 THE CULTIVATED EVERGREENS 



in a large plantation is a serious matter in these days when 

 labor is so difficult to obtain." 



Soils, manures, and mulches for conifers. (John Dunbar.) 



The greater number of conifers prefer a well-drained porous 

 gravelly subsoil, overlaid with a light sandy loam. They seem 

 to be particularly happy in a soil underlaid with a porous 

 glacial drift. A few grow spontaneously in swampy grounds, 

 such as tamarack, Larix laricina; cypress, Taxodium distichum; 

 white-cedar, Chama;cyparis thyoides; and common arbor-vitse. 

 Thuja occidentalis. In cultivation, however, they succeed very 

 well in ordinary well-drained soil. In fact, the common arbor- 

 vitae does well in dryish soils; specimens planted on knolls of 

 light sandy loam underlaid with glacial drift are in excellent 

 health. When conifers are set in clay soil, which is often done, 

 the soil should be thoroughly loosened by trenching or subsoil 

 plowing, and well underdrained. Any avai-lable humus, wood- 

 ashes, and well-rotted manure incorporated in the soil greatly 

 aid in rendering it friable and porous for the roots. 



All conifers respond well to cultivation in growth and vigor. 

 An area extending from the stem to one to two feet beyond the 

 branches, stirred up with hoe and rake perhaps five or six 

 times throughout the growing season, is very beneficial in 

 conserving the moisture around the roots. Mulching with 

 ordinary well-rotted barnyard manure in late autumn affords 

 much stimulus to growth. By the following spring the manure 

 will be in a desiccated condition and can be incorporated with 

 the soil. William Falconer, who had charge of the Dana 

 Arboretum many years ago, the best cultivator of conifers the 

 writer ever knew, placed a heavy mulch of old straw, rotten 

 hay, or any similar material over the roots of the conifers, and 

 this was maintained throughout the entire growing season. In 



