HOW WE PLANT A TREE. 
The Good Old-Fashioned Way in Detail. 
How do we plant a tree? Better ask bow do we get 
ready to plant a tree, for more depends upon getting 
ready right than in the 
actual planting. Better 
make up your mind the 
year before you are go¬ 
ing to plant, and then 
spend a year getting 
ready. 
Select a piece in sod 
if possible. Manure it 
well. Plant corn, pota¬ 
toes, beans or anything 
that needs cultivation. 
If the land is not well 
drained, drain it, and 
drain it well. No half¬ 
way job will do. You 
may get a row of trees 
right on a wet spot, and 
then how are you going 
to drain it? Drains on 
some of our land have 
to be a rod or two apart 
to do good work. Yours 
may not need them so 
close. The Spring fol¬ 
lowing plow and subsoil 
the field before planting. 
This applies to heavy or 
clay soils. If your soil 
is light or sandy do not 
subsoil. Subsoiling is 
done with a special 
plow. One team goes 
ahead with the regular 
turning plow, another 
team follows with the 
subsoil plow in the same 
furrow, and lifts up and 
loosens from five to 
seven inches of the sub¬ 
soil, and drops it back 
but does not turn it. If 
the season proves a dry 
one you have a foot or 
more of loosened soil to 
hold the moisture. If 
a wet season follows the 
extra water descends to 
the subsoil and your top 
soil is drier. Better in 
either case; better for 
the trees, better for the 
crop. But this subsoil¬ 
ing also vastly helps in 
planting the trees. There 
are some who advocate 
subsoiling in the Fall. 
I see no objection to 
this, and it might be a 
benefit. 
Should the trees ar¬ 
rive before the ground 
is plowed heel them in. Plow a deep furrow or trench 
a short distance, cut open the bundles and trim the 
trees, root and top. It has to be done some time; 
why not do it now? Take a pruner and cut off ends 
of all the larger roots—all broken roots cut off en¬ 
tirely, Trim the top back to short stubs of two or 
three buds each. If the head is not formed high 
enough to suit leave the leading central stem entire 
to form a new head. This applies to apple and pear 
trees two years old. Peach trees come one year old 
and should he cut back to a mere whip. As fast as 
trimmed lay in trench at a slight angle and cover 
roots with moist mellow dirt lightly pressed. Trees 
well heeled in May stand for weeks before planting 
and you can go about your ground preparation with¬ 
out worrying. When the ground is all fitted drive a 
stake for each row of trees on all four sides of field. 
Provide stakes for center of field—one row each way. 
These stakes are to line with the outside stakes in 
each direction. Take a steady team and plow and 
open a deep furrow down and back where each row 
of trees comes. If this is done straight and true very 
little digging will be 
needed for the trees. 
How we plant a tree 
can be told in very few 
words. Take the tree, 
from the trench (all 
pruned and ready), sight 
by the stakes where it 
belongs. If the furrow 
is not deep enough 
shovel a little deeper, 
but it is about as bad to 
plant a tree too deep as 
too shallow. • Place a 
little deeper than it for¬ 
merly stood in nursery. 
You can tell by the 
color of the bark on the 
trunk. Shovel moist 
mellow soil next to the 
roots, press the soil 
around them with hand 
or foot. After roots are 
straightened out and 
covered shovel the hole 
level full and press soil 
down again with foot. 
Then throw a shovelful, 
of loose soil on top and 
you are done. Don’t 
you see it is nearly all 
preparation, then sim-, 
ply planting? Bear in 
mind, however, that the 
planting will not be so 
simple and easy without 
the thorough prepara¬ 
tion. This, then, is how 
we plant a tree, but the 
world moves, and of 
late there are stories and 
rumors of a new method 
by using dynamite. This 
will be given a trial this 
Spring, a report of 
which will be given 
later. w. A. b. 
Interlaken, N. Y. 
FLOWERS OF SUL¬ 
PHUR FOR HOP 
MILDEW. 
The last two years 
have witnessed the ap¬ 
pearance of a very de¬ 
structive disease in the 
New York hop yards. 
This is the hop mildew 
or mould, which has 
been a very destructive 
disease in English hop 
yards for ^nearly two 
centuries but has not previously been recorded as do¬ 
ing serious damage in this country to hops. While of 
recent appearance here, during the year 1910 several 
yards were a complete loss, and during the past sea¬ 
son many more yards suffered large losses, and in 
other cases losses were only prevented by the exten- 
WHAT WE DREAMED OF THROUGH THE BLIZZARDS. Fig. 181. 
A 
