The old saying "It is always darkest just before day" is, we believe, an especially appropriate quotation at 

 this time. It has indeed been a dark and gloomy year for almost everybody; but just as surely as day f oUows 

 night, just so surely will good times f oUow the period of business depression through which we are and have been 

 passing for the past three years. As an evidence of this, history shows that our great United States, with its 

 vast and numerous resources cannot be kept under a financial cloud longer than three to four years. Therefore 

 v.-e confidently believe, whether we have free silver or whether we don't, that the financial night is nearly over 

 and soon again "v^'ill the sun of prosperity shine upon us with all its splendor. 



The past spring was perhaps the most unfavorable ever known, for the planting of trees and plants. Usually 

 we are able to begin tilling the soil and digging trees and plants from the nm-series early in March. On the 

 sixth day of last April the ground was covered with six inches of snow. The cold weather extending to late into 

 April, was immediately followed by two weeks of almost tropical heat; forcing everything forward so rapidly 

 that on the twentieth day of the same month many kinds of trees had begun to unfold their leaves. To make mat- 

 ters still worse, there was no rainfall of any importance from the time spring opened until late in June. This 

 condition of the weather resulted in tremendous losses in planting out trees and plants— it could not be other- 

 wise. A block of ten acres of yoimg Evergreens planted in our nurseries with the utmost care proved almost a 

 total loss. Reports of the experience of others, coming to us from many quarters are, we regret to state, of the 

 same purport. The lesson has been both bitter and expensive, yet it is worth all it has cost if planters will but 

 learn it weU. The solution of the problem of successful planting can be stated in a few words— PZawi in Autumn! 

 The advantages of Autumn planting, when the air is cool, the earth moist and fruit-growers and farmers have 

 the time to carefully execute the work, are so great and many over planting in the spring as to render a com- 

 parison difficult. With the exception of Cap Raspberries and Evergreens, the very best 

 way to handle nursery stock is to have it shipped in the Autvmm and planted at once 

 in the orchard or garden. If circmnstances prevent the planting of stock in the fall 

 then it should be ' 'heeled in" upon one's own grounds so as to be ready at hand for 

 planting in Spring at the earliest possible moment. If the procm'ing of trees and 

 plants to be planted, is deferred until Spring the preparing of the soil where they are 

 to be set is liable to be also; and by the time the stock can be obtained and planted it 

 is so late that growth has started, and dry, hot weather almost always follows before 

 it has had a chance to get a hold and become established, causing a good share of the 

 very best plants and trees to die. More nursery stock is lost from late planting in 



Spring than from any other cause. Not 

 only this, but those that live become more 

 or less stunted and make only a feeble 

 gro\\i:h compared with those planted in Au- 

 tumn. "When trees are planted in Autumn 

 a smiU mound of earth should be made at 

 the base of each one to shed surplus rain- 

 fall and prevent severe freezing, frequent 

 thawing and swaying, as shown in the accompanying figure, which should be reduced to the level in the Spring 

 as soon as the ground has become ' 'settled." A similar but smaller mound of either soil or manure should be made 

 at each Blackberry, Raspberry, Grape, &c., after planting, to prevent repeated and severe freezing at the roots, 

 and Avhich should be removed as recommended for trees. Tlie best and most thrifty fruit growers throughout the 

 country — ^the progressive, forehanded ones— practice getting in their supply of nursery stock in the faU. 



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