CHAPTEE YIL 



HOW TO PLANT. 



The last thing before you are ready to set out your grove, 

 is to have the ground thoroughly ploughed (this should not be 

 the first time, however), for it is not well to plant trees in freshly 

 ploughed land, as the soil is always more or less sour, and needs 

 sun and air to sweeten it. 



If it is practicable to break up the land for the future 

 grove several months before setting out the trees, and to plant 

 and turn under a crop of cow-peas, with, or even without a light 

 sprinkling of lime, so much the better, although this is not abso- 

 lutely necessary. 



The ground thus prepared, the next thing in order is to lay 

 it out in grove form. 



Supposing that your fences lay at right angles with each 

 other, as they should do, this will not be a very difficult matter ; 

 measuring the distance you wish the first row to be from a 

 parallel fence, first at one end and then at the other of the pro- 

 posed line, stretch a rope (or wire preferred) from a stake driven 

 down at the point of measurement at one end, and to its corres- 

 ponding stake at the other. 



Before this is done, however, tags at the desired distance 

 apart should have been tied to rope, or wire, in such manner as 

 to preclude their slipping out of place. 



Now, keeping your measuring cord tight, close do^vn to a 

 stake at each of these tags; these mark the j)osition of the tap 

 root of the tree. Now, whatever space you have chosen for your 

 trees to set apart, as just staked out, whether twenty, twenty-five 

 or thirty feet, measure this distance at a right angle for your 

 first row, at each end ; remove your measuring line to these new 

 points of departure, and drive down your stakes to mark the 

 tags as before ; this gives the second row of trees. By adopting 

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