1911. 
TRANSPLANTING OLD TREES. 
General Care of Nursery Stock. 
My sister moved a horse chestnut tree latter part of 
November, 1910, to her new house she had built one-fourth 
mile away, and she claims the tree did exceptionally well 
and seemed to improve through moving. Said tree is 
now about eight years old, and she would like to plant it 
now in a permanent position to stay. Can you advise 
me the best time to shift it? Originally it had been 
grown in very poor, rocky soil, but the shift has been 
into a good, rich soil, and it has responded to the change 
nicely. h. o. 
West New Brighton, N. Y. 
There is no iron-clad rule to follow in digging up 
and transplanting trees. Much depends on local con¬ 
ditions, and the man who does the work must have 
common sense and a knowledge of one or two funda¬ 
mental laws of plant life. First of all the trees 
should be dormant, and therefore late Fall or early 
Spring is the best time to do the work. 
The older the tree, the more care needs 
to be exercised in the operation. It is 
a shock to any tree to transplant it. 
All the little fibrous roots that make a 
perfect network in the ground are prac¬ 
tically lost, and the tree must develop 
this root system all over again when it 
gets into its new home. Take a little 
seedling, for instance, that the nursery¬ 
man gets from France. It is dug up in 
the Fall, shipped to America in the 
Winter time, and in order to get these 
little things to live, the branches are 
all trimmed off and the roots cut back 
severely In this way, a skillful nursery¬ 
man seldom loses a seedling unless it 
should be exposed to heat or frost in 
transportation. The main thing is to 
keep the roots from being dried out or‘ 
frozen, and to pack the ground firmly 
around them when transplanting. Re¬ 
setting a one or two-year-old fruit or 
ornamental tree demands more care; yet 
even at this stage, a tree will stand a 
tremendous amount of handling out of 
the ground. Perhaps it is not generally 
known that in these days of cold storage 
plants, over three-fourths of the fruit 
and ornamental trees sold in America 
are stripped of their leaves as early as 
September and October, dug up, shipped 
often long distances, and packed away 
in some cold storage until Spring, when 
they are billed out and sent to the 
planter by the retail nurseryman. This 
undoubtedly is a trying process on a 
tree, but still they live if properly trans¬ 
planted. 
The ideal way is to dig them up late 
in the Fall or early in the Spring and 
transplant them as soon as possible. In 
a very severe climate where the locality 
is windswept and bitter cold, by all 
means leave the tree where it is until 
early Spring. On the other hand, 
should local conditions be somewhat 
favorable, Fall planting is desirable be¬ 
cause the tree usually starts in the 
Spring long before it is possible to get 
on the ground to remove it on acount of 
the frosty and water-soaked condition 
of the soil. However do not transplant 
a tree in the Fall unless it is done care¬ 
fully by packing the dirt firmly around 
the roots and mounding it up around 
the body to a height of a foot or so in 
order to protect the tree from hard 
freezing and from the swaying caused 
by high winds. The limbs must be cut 
back in proportion to the amount of 
roots lost in digging. There is a wide 
difference of opinion among experienced planters as to 
just how severe this pruning should be. but. when 
everything is said, it all depends on how good the 
roots are when it is being set out. When it is desir¬ 
able to transplant an ornamental tree without pruning 
it, especially an old one, great care should be used 
in getting all the roots possible without injury and 
spreading them in the ground just as they were when 
dug. 
A large tree can be shifted to advantage in the 
Winter time. It is an expensive way of doing it, but 
in fact the only way when the tree is advanced in 
years. Dig out around it when the frost is in the 
ground and take up all the roots with the dirt frozen 
around them—the more the better. Try to preserve 
as much of the root system with the ground attached 
to it as practicable. Do not make the shift during 
freezing weather unless the dirt is held in place around 
the roots. The earth will hold together when frozen, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
but it is better to make the shift on a day that is not 
freezing as some of the roots will probably be ex¬ 
posed. The place should be ready and the tree trans¬ 
planted at once. It requires some skill to do this prop¬ 
erly as a large tree with the ground around the roots 
is a heavy and hard thing to handle. Volumes have 
been written on the proper time to transplant our 
hardy trees and shrubs, but they all revolve around 
these few fundamental principles. Their practical ap¬ 
plication in any locality requires only good judgment 
on the part of the man who directs the work. 
M. K. 
DIRECT BUSINESS WITH FARMERS. 
Do you think that it would be possible for a person 
to go to the farmers in his vicinity and to offer them 
for butter and eggs a price within four or five cents 
per pound or dozen of the price paid by the consumer, 
charging the consumer a couple of cents more per 
pound for good butter and a couple of cents more 
per dozen for absolutely fresh eggs, and in this way 
make a fair living for the agent? Would this be fair 
to the farmer? The farmer would certainly be get¬ 
ting a great deal more than 35 cents of the consumer’s 
dollar. Of course I realize that there must be other 
people who are doing this, and by other people I do 
not refer to the average commission merchant. As a 
consumer I find that although I am willing to pay 
well for good butter and fresh eggs, it is almost im¬ 
possible to get them, and this set me to thinking about 
this idea. Do you think that a profit of four or five 
cents per pound or dozen would be exorbitant? 
Chenanago Co., N. Y. a. l. b. 
R- N.-Y.—This is but further evidence of the way 
plans for more direct dealing with farmers are spread¬ 
ing. There has been nothing like it before. This plan 
of letting one middleman do the work of two or 
1131 
three is being carried out to some extent in New 
York, both in a small individual way, and by general 
retailers. But the saving is not so great as might 
be expected, as the express, freight, trucking, and, in 
some cases, storage charges must still be met. The 
trouble with New York is the shape of the city and 
the difficulty of getting goods into it. The city is on a 
long and narrow island, with but little real farming 
land near by. In smaller towns the plan is more 
feasible, but it must be remembered that the farmers 
who supply the smaller cities get, as a rule, a larger 
percentage of the consumers’ price. Large quantities 
of butter and eggs are sold in small towns and cities 
on a narrower profit margin than the inquirer sug¬ 
gests. Ihere is no one rule that would apply to a 
large number of places. The conditions of supply 
and demand must be canvassed thoroughly, and all 
necessary expenses considered. Then the possibili¬ 
ties in any individual case can be 
learned. 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH RYE. 
I would like F. H. B. of Chenango 
Co., N. Y., to tell us about plowing 
under his rye. Was the land sloping or 
what direction did it face? What kind 
of land, heavy or light, dry or wet? 
How much fertilizer did he use? Was 
it upland or in the valley? This rye 
was sown after the middle of October 
he states. I am desirous of informa¬ 
tion along this line, because I intend 
trying the rye this Fall. c. E. H. 
Cuyler, N. Y. 
I have been sowing rye for several 
years, and usually on gravel or sand, 
after a crop of some kind has been har¬ 
vested ; for instance, silage corn, pota¬ 
toes or wheat. This year I harvested 
our piece of rye about June 15, green 
for hay. It was an immense growth, 2j/> 
or three tons to the acre. I plowed at 
once, after rye was harvested, sowed to 
buckwheat and harvested a fair crop; 
afterward sowed rye again, and now it is 
pretty good feed. In 1910, about Octo¬ 
ber 20 or 30, I hired a neighbor to sow 
five bushels, maybe 5]/ 2 , of rye on four 
acres of corn stubble, dragged it over 
once, drag lapped over one-half; used 
no fertilizer, and never have on rye. 
Used spring-tooth drag November 13, 
1910. Mrs. Brooks and myself left home 
for St. Louis, Mo., and were gone about 
five weeks. Rye did not show above 
ground. On our return, ground frozen 
hard, weather cold. Within two weeks, 
as near as I recall it, we had a bit of a 
thaw and the rye showed a little, looked 
a bit sickly, and so it did in the Spring, 
up to the last of April. After that date 
it was a great pleasure to see it grow. 
The last week of May it was so rank and 
tall 1 experimented; measured off one 
acre, put horses on a land roller, told 
man to go around the acre, then hitch to 
plow and told man to go around the acre 
same way rolled, and hardly a stalk of 
rye showed. I dragged it well, planted 
the acre after rowing, or marking, both 
ways. Immediately plowed another acre 
the same way, after rolling; the seed 
was sent to me as a gift, from a friend 
living in Allamuchy, N. J.,; reason for 
my doing this thing as an experiment. 
It was a yellow eight-rowed corn, very 
long ears, small cob, and the growth 
was a surprise to me and my neighbors, 
and had the frost held off 10 or 12 
days I would have harvested a fine crop of ears as 
well as stalks. The frost caught us napping Sep¬ 
tember 12-13. I put it in silo. I have plowed and 
sowed the four acres again. It is good feed now; 
the other half of the four acres I let ripen, thrashed 
66 bushels of rye, sold all I could or would spare 
for $1.25 a bushel. I have sown 10 acres already, 
just finished a four-acre piece but not all harrowed 
in. I expect to plow under and plant to corn and 
potatoes a part of this land, cut some for hay if hay 
crop is short, save some for seed. My land is in 
the Chenango Valley, a little dry, in places stony 
and sandy or gravelly loam, but fine corn and wheat 
land and fine hay land when not too dry. 
f. w. BROOKS. 
R. N.-Y.—We have had much the same experience 
with rye. It is of course too late to sow it now, but 
up to October 15 it will give good returns. The open 
Fall has been very favorable for farm work this year. 
MOTIVE POWER OF A FLORIDA LAUNDRY. Fig. 458. 
WATER SUPPLY FOR THE LAUNDRY. Fig. 459 . 
