4 FORESTRY MANUAL. 



quired distance and a stake be set where each tree is to be planted, and, un- 

 less the surface of the ground is so uneven as to prevent, the stakes should 

 be made to form straight rows east and west, north and south, northeast and 

 southwest, and northwest and southeast. If the rows running north and 

 south and east and west are eighteen feet apart and the trees are set on the 

 quincunx plan they (the trees) will be a little over twenty-five feet apart, 

 arid if the rows are twenty-two the trees will be about thirty feet apart. 

 The holes should be dug of sufficient width to receive all the roots in their 

 natural position, and if a foot wider all the better, and the bottoms of them 

 should be well spaded up to the depth of ten or twelve inches. Particular 

 care must be taken to have the soil in close contact with all the roots, and 

 it should be tramped with the feet unless a bucket full or so of water be ap- 

 plied as the process of filling the hole proceeds. Care must be taken that all 

 the roots are in their natural position. Set the trees so that they will incline 

 about ten or fifteen degrees to the southwest, as the tendency of most orch- 

 ard trees is in the opposite direction when set perpendicular. 



The trees should not be more than three years old, and perhaps two-year- 

 olds are better, as they can be removed from the nursery with less loss of 

 roots. Before being planted each tree should be encircled with a piece of 

 common building tar-paper, extending from the surface roots' to the limbs. 

 This will protect them from the depredations of borers and rabbits, and pre- 

 vent sun-scald during warm winter days. It should be large enough to encir- 

 cle the tree after it shall have made several years growth. The depth of plant- 

 ing should, not be much greater in the orchard than the nursery, but very 

 soon after the planting is completed culture should be begun by plowing the 

 ground to the trees, which will give them the depth they need. Soon after 

 this plowing is done a good mulch of hay, straw or coarse manure should 

 be spread around each tree, extending far enough to well cover the roots, 

 and sufficient earth be thrown upon it to prevent the wind from blowing it 

 away. If this mulch cannot be obtained the soil about the trees can be kept 

 moist by frequent stirring, and the more frequent the better. That crop and 

 that culture is the best for a young orchard which calls for the most fre- 

 quent working of the surface soil during the early part of the season, and 

 hence potatoes, corn, beans, mangels and kindred crops should occupy the 

 ground for the first four or five years. Fodder-corn and buckwheat are both 

 good orchard crops after the trees have become large enough not to be 

 shaded by them. I have sometimes practiced sowing my orchard with peas 

 —broadcast— but in a dry season they are not a very certain crop. 



At the first two plowings the earth should be turned toward the trees, and 

 after that alternately to and from them until the orchard is to be seeded to 

 clover or timothy, when the last two plowings should be toward them. 

 From three to four years at a time is sufficiently long for an orchard to re- 

 main in grass, when it should be replowed and cultivated a year or two and 

 then put in grass again. If hogs with noses "full-jeweled " can be permitted 

 the run of the orchard after the trees have become sufficiently large not to 

 be injured by being rubbed against by them, it may be of equal benefit to a 



