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10 GUIDE. 



It consists of bending the branches down into the ground instead of leaving them upright 

 and heaping them up with earth, as in the layering method above. 



This method is used to fill in clearings in copsewoods that are not too large; it's 

 one of the easiest and least costly ways to accomplish this important objective. If there 

 are trees with young, flexible, and vigorous branches located at the edge of or inside a 

 clearing, small trenches about ten inches wide and a foot deep, and long enough to 

 accommodate the branches, are dug in the ground. The branches are then carefully bent 

 so as not to break them off of their stocks. They are laid down in these small trenches. 

 Their upper ends should be straight and extend about six inches out of the ground. About 

 half an inch should be clipped from the top of the branch to stop the flow of sap and to 

 get it to generate roots. The laid-down branches should be embedded in grass, leaf mulch, 

 and topsoil, and the rest of the trench refilled with the original soil. The soil is 

 compressed to firm it up around the branches and to retain moisture favorable for root 

 development. Vertical branches must not be left in a cluster where most of the other 

 branches have been laid down. Sap from the main stock has a strong tendency to rise 

 straight up, rather than to circulate into bent-over branches; it will fail to go into them and 

 instead will flow mainly into the vertical ones, and the layers will be lost. So it's essential 

 to get rid of the vertical branches. 



