DIGGING AND HANDLING EVERGREENS. 3I 



air pumps the moisture from the tree before the roots are 

 established to supply the waste. While living In Pueblo, Color- 

 ado, the mountaineers would bring down trees with a lump of 

 earth the last of February and guarantee them to grow. But 

 the hot sun and drying winds, playing around the tree before 

 It is well established, would do the work and almost every 

 one would die. When the ground is thaweid out in March 

 and the conditions seem favorable you are tempted to plant 

 your evergreens. Don't do It. The drying winds would like 

 nothing better than to wring all the moisture out. 



Planted just at the right time the tree is bound to go forward 

 It the conditions are right. It is a bad plan to plant in a high 

 wind for the evaporation ia too strong. It can be done, how- 

 ever, if you mud the roots as heavily as possible. The ground 

 should be moist also, so that it will pack well about the tree. 



If you are making quite a plantation, the better way will 

 be to get a few thousand seedlings or small trees, say eight 

 to fourteen inches, and put them in nursery rows and let them 

 grow two or three years. If the conditions are just right you 

 can put them out after two years. If not, you can let them 

 stand a year longer. Tou can watch the right time. If the 

 ground is moist and the weather cloudy you have just the 

 conditions. Dig up your trees and put them on a sled or stone 

 boat with all the earth on them and you can transplant them 

 without their knowing it and they will make quite a growth the 

 first year. By this process you can continue the work even 

 after they have started a little. 



Some theorists insist that June is the time to plant. This 

 is sheer nonsense. Often the trees have made a foot of growth 

 which is sure to wilt down as soon as they ai i> 

 you have a poor, sickly, droopy thing. It is the worst time 

 possible to move a tree. 



One year, when the work was crowding, I had a few thou- 

 sand Ponderosas to move. They were three-year-old seedlings, 

 and had made a growth of four inches. I knew it was wrong, 

 but they would be too large if left another year, and I wanted 

 the ground. The earth was moist and the weather cloudy, 

 but with the best care only one-halt lived and the shock was 

 such they could make no growth. Had they been moved two 

 wiei-.s en', lier they would have been all right. 



The Ball of Earth. When an evergreen is from' two to five 

 feet tall, if possible, it should be moved with a ball of earth 

 about the roots. In Holland they have a process of grafting 

 the brightest forms of the Silver Spruce which are sent back 

 to US' by the thousand and are invariably shipped with the ball 

 of earth. Foreign-grown Azaleas and Rhododendrons are sent 

 In the same way. In short, this is the only way in which 

 evergreen trees of whatever kind should be handled. In Florida 

 and California Lemon and Orange trees must always have the 



