THE STORY OF A GOOD TREE. 
How Trees Are Dug. 
label corresponds with the name of the kind ordered. 
They work up a big trade for a few seasons, and 
the reliable nurseryman who is careful with his trees 
The objection to a great percentage of the litera- cannot compete with them, selling, as they do, at such 
ture that deals with fruit growing is that it is a low figure. The natural result is that buyers have 
tends to set out an orchard. Figure it out, and the 
original cost of a tree is comparatively small con¬ 
sidering the outlay that is involved in planting and 
caring for it until it comes to maturity. What 
folly, then, to take the cheapest things to be 
too much theory and not enough about the real, some bitter experience with these so-called nursery- had, with little or no knowledge of the parties 
practical, everyday prob¬ 
lems that the fruit 
grower must meet and 
solve. Foremost among 
these difficulties, is the 
all-important problem of 
the young tree, and 
until the planter becomes 
familiar with the nur¬ 
sery end of fruit grow¬ 
ing, he will be forever 
making serious and far- 
reaching mistakes with 
his plantings. No wealth 
of soil and care will 
ever make a poor stick 
of a tree coming from 
the fruit tree dealer' 
turn out to be anything 
but a failure. This does 
not mean that every 
planter should raise his 
own trees from the na¬ 
tural seedlings. In fact 
the real nurseryman is 
a specialist, and h i s 
work cannot be done to 
advantage by the fruit 
grower; but the or- 
chardist, it would seem, 
ought to become at least 
familiar enough with 
nursery methods so as 
to appreciate just what 
his nurseryman is doing 
for him, and just how 
the trees he buys have 
been propagated and 
handled. 
The reason why he 
should do so is clear. 
To begin with, the com¬ 
plaint heard on all sides 
of late is that the nur¬ 
seryman is not playing 
fair with the planter. 
The trees coming from 
the nursery do not live, 
and what is worse still, 
oftentimes they do live 
and turn out untrue to 
name, necessitating years 
of labor and expense 
for nothing. Then, too, 
there is the question of 
price; the tree agent 
comes around and offers 
a cherry tree for a dol¬ 
lar ; some catalogue firm 
claims to have the same 
thing for sale at 20 cents. 
Usually people buy 
wherever they can get trees at the cheapest price, and 
the result re that irresponsible dealers are in the nur¬ 
sery business who take advantage of the general lack 
of information on the part of buyers, and sell large 
quantities of trees at low prices, with little or no re¬ 
gard to their real value as long as the name on the 
DIGGING TREES IN A WESTERN NEW YORK NURSERY. Fig. 445. 
A CLOSER VIEW OF TFIE NURSERY TREE DIGGER. Fig. 446. 
men, and the whole profession suffers as a result. 
Every fruit grower should select his nursery firm 
with as much care as he would an insurance society; 
and a personal visit to' the section where the trees 
are growing and a talk with the men who are doing 
the work ought to be the aim of every man who in- 
from whom they are 
bought! Years of labor, 
use of land, and skilled 
attention are often ab¬ 
solutely thrown away, 
when it develops that 
the trees in the orchard 
are not at all what they 
were supposed to be 
when planted. We all 
know that the best way 
to get at the real status 
of a man is to go to his 
home town and talk 
with his neighbors. This 
is particularly true with 
reference to a nursery 
firm. How simple a thing 
it is for a prospective 
fruit tree planter to pay 
a personal visit to some 
large nursery center, 
meet the men who ac¬ 
tually grow the trees, 
and give a little care 
and thought in buying 
to the best advantage. 
In this way, he elimin¬ 
ates the commission man 
entirely, and the money 
actually- saved in the 
first cost of the trees 
will more than pay the 
expense of even a long 
journey. For instance, if 
a personal visitation of 
this nature were made 
in the month of October 
or early part of Novem¬ 
ber to the world famous 
valley of the Genesee 
in western New York, 
the man who made it 
would come away with 
an entirely new im¬ 
pression of the nursery 
business, if he had never 
been to a nursery be¬ 
fore; and, out of the 
two or three hundred 
firms that are doing 
business in that great 
valley, formerly the bed 
of a lake, he would have 
no difficulty in selecting 
some firm on whom he 
could rely for first-class 
trees. There are other 
nursery centers in the 
country, but the Genesee 
Valley is mentioned be¬ 
cause it is one of the 
most important fruit tree growing regions of the 
North. 
At this season of the year a visitor would find 
the nurserymen busily engaged in digging" trees. Now 
there is hardly a phase of fruit tree culture that 
needs to be more fully explained to the planter than 
