Making the Rows Straight 201 



rags at the ends to prevent injuring the trees, and fill up the trench 

 at two rounds. Then plow the space between the rows. One thing 

 must be very carefully figured out the very first thing, if the hex- 

 agonal style is used, and that is, the distances between the rows at 

 right angles, and not diagonally from tree to tree, and then accurately 

 measured and staked on the outer Unes. The great WeUhouse orch- 

 ards, in Kansas, were laid out with the plow. J. H. Hale substituted 

 a 60-cent per day darkey and a mule for a $6 surveyor and transit, 

 in laying out his rows for planting his 600-acre peach orchard in 

 Georgia. 



"Laying out with a line. — For small orchards of an acre or two, 

 I have often practised a method of laying out in the hexagonal style, 

 which is very quickly and easily done. As many stakes are provided 

 as there are trees to be set. A wire is prepared of the exact length 

 that the trees are to be apart, and a ring or loop twisted in at each 

 end, by which to hold it. A base-line is established by setting stakes 

 just where each tree will be in the first row. One person (A) sUps 

 a finger through one ring, and another (B) takes the other end of the 

 wire and runs a small stick through the ring. A holds his end exactly 

 at stake 1, and B steps to where he supposes the first tree of the 

 second row will come, and with the point of his stick marks a small 

 segment of a circle on the ground. He remains there while A goes 

 to stake 2 and holds his end exactly to it. B describes another arc on 

 the ground, and where it crosses the first one he sets a stake, and 

 moves to the place for the next stake. There he makes a mark, and 

 A then goes to stake 3 of the base-line and holds the wire as before, 

 while B finds the crossing of the marks and sets another stake; and 

 so on to the end of the row. When the second row is complete it is 

 used as a base-line from which to make a third, and so on. If the work 

 is done carefully the stakes wiU be found to be in very straight rows 

 every way. I have tried it on some of the roughest hills in northern 

 Michigan, where, in newly cleared places the stumps were very thick, 

 and planted nice orchards that are now over twenty-five years old, 

 that look to-day as if the trees might have been set by a compass 

 and chain. On level ground, free froin obstructions, it is fun to lay 

 out an orchard so. 



"Another line method. — ^Another cheap and handy method is, to 

 mark and set by a wire long enough to reach entirely across the field. 

 It should be stretched tightly between two stout stakes that have 

 been firmly driven into the ground, and exactly on the line of the 



