my. 
1.1 Li T 
STARTING AN EVERGREEN NURSERY. 
Seedlings Rather than Seeds. 
A recent correspondent, IT. W. P., Detroit, 
asks for information that will aid him to 
Me., 
start an 
U'JHhL RURAL NEW-YOK^CER 
green hedge is that it is beautiful all the year round. 
It will withstand any temperature; but the privet 
succumbs at zero or less and then starts anew from 
the roots. philip snyder. 
evergreen nursery. The plan of II. W. P. is, no 
doubt, based on economy; lie wishes to, be at no ex¬ 
pense except for seed—perhaps not even that if ever¬ 
greens are abundant near him. But if he is without 
experience with seedlings (as seems evident), and 
has none of the apparatus for starting such a nurs¬ 
ery, he would better let it alone. Let him select 
good ground, buy young trees at least once trans¬ 
planted, and then give liis stock the best of care. 
Me will soon have a nursery with no serious loss of 
stock, and will find pleasure in the development and 
cultivation of the trees, and profit also in their sale 
to nearby customers, and to more dis¬ 
tant customers when he learns to dig, 
pack and ship successfully. 
As this inquirer lives in Maine, where 
plenty of small evergreens can no doubt 
be had for the digging, he would bet¬ 
ter invest in them than to try to start 
a nursery from seeds. If dug and 
transplanted from a wild state he will 
lose a good many, perhaps a third or 
half, but that is better than for an in¬ 
experienced man to try to start a nurs¬ 
ery from seeds alone. The objection to 
the latter plan is that the gathering of 
cones, the separation of the seeds from 
the cones, planting at just the right 
time, with the care of the tender .seed¬ 
lings for several years, requires train¬ 
ing, experience, good judgment and 
many appliances for transplanting, 
shading and other cares which a novice 
will find hard to master. The most 
delicate treatment is required all along 
the line. The seedlings, as they appear above ground, 
are exceedingly tender, and must be shaded more or 
less; too much sunshine will kill them outright and 
too little will stunt and dwarf. How to sow the seed, 
in drills or not; how far apart; when to thin out; 
when to transplant; when to shade them; what 
care to give in Winter—all these are practical ques¬ 
tions which for a novice to solve will discourage him 
very soon and make him wonder why anybody has 
succeeded at the business. 
But there are certain nurserymen who, by long 
study and practice, and some failures, have learned 
how to do it, and who plant and raise millions of 
them, and then sell at really low prices—places that 
enable almost any intelligent man to raise them suc¬ 
cessfully after being once transplanted, 
lings without being transplanted can be 
bought and grown, but the percentage 
of loss will always he much more than 
to buy those once transplanted, and ac¬ 
cording to my experience and observa¬ 
tion are much the cheapest. In good 
ground and with good care with trans¬ 
plants the loss will rarely exceed 10 
per cent., and in two or three seasons 
the grower has something lie can rec¬ 
ommend for hedges, and at a price that 
will pay him a profit. Small ever¬ 
greens have been advancing in price 
during the last four years, but the sell¬ 
ing price when two feet high or more 
will bring an ample profit. No costly 
greenhouses, no shading apparatus, no 
system of costly waterworks will be 
needed to start a small nursery of Nor¬ 
way spruce plants 12 or 15 inches high, 
and once transplanted. Water freely 
when they are planted, and if dry 
weather follows, mulching will he an 
aid to success. It hardly needs men- 
lion that all weeds should be destroyed 
and the ground kept mellow, either by 
the spade, the hoe, or the cultivator. Once started 
and started right evergreens are hardy and long 
lived, and though tall growers naturally, they are, 
easily dwarfed by cutting back and kept at any de-, 
sired height. 
1 lie taste for evergreen hedges and evergreen trees 
is advancing each year, and is a healthy sign of prog¬ 
ress. No hedge ever planted can equal the ever- 
gieen in beauty or utility. I know of a Norway 
spruce planted 44 years ago and still doing well, 
though suffering some by too many changes of own- 
‘‘■s. Some nurserymen are booming the California 
privet as being something admirable, but during the 
; 1 years of the Norway spruce, mentioned above, the 
* alifornia privet would have been frozen down to 
tile ground live or six times, while as soon as frost 
comes it loses color and becomes dull and dingy, with 
'■inch loss of foliage. The great merit of the ever- 
A CONSIDERATION OF PLOWING. 
Part III. 
Another requisite of good plowing is dependent 
on the fact that the best crop yields are contingent 
on a close capillary connection between the soil and 
the subsoil. This capillary connection is always 
broken by plowing, but its re-establishment may be 
made sure by either one of two ways, either by 
plowing long enough beforehand for the connection 
to become established, or by stirring (disking) the 
ground before plowing so that the soil which falls 
Now, this suggests the thought that as a rule we 
do not appreciate fully the value of water. Conse¬ 
quently we plow only to prepare a seed-bed, whereas 
we should plow with the additional purpose of con¬ 
serving moisture. If we had any adequate idea of 
what an enormous amount of water it takes to pro¬ 
duce a crop, how slowly water percolates to its place 
of storage in the subsoil, and how alarmingly rapid 
is its rate of evaporation if the storehouse is un¬ 
protected we certainly would do all we could to 
prevent the loss. Ax it is, the Springtime is usually 
wet, at least the rains are frequent; and if the 
ground gets dry, why the next rain will wet it. We 
see no deeper than the furrow slice. We do not see 
that when" the soil gets dry between rains it does 
so only after tons and tons of water have been 
pumped up from the subsoil by capillarity and evap¬ 
orated ; and when the destructive 
drought of August or July is upon us 
it never occurs to us that its destruct¬ 
iveness is due to the loss of water from 
the subsoil in March and April. And 
yet such is the case. We are like a man 
who uses ice from his icehouse in Win¬ 
ter instead of from his pond. 
When we learn to put a higher value 
on the water in that storehouse—the 
subsoil—when we learn to plow to con¬ 
serve moisture as well as to prepare a 
seed bed, then will we plow more deep¬ 
ly and carefully, and most of us who 
now plow late in the Spring will plow 
much earlier, or even in the Autumn 
before. h. e. mern. 
MILCII GOATS ON EXHIBITION. Fig. 421). (See Page 1140.) 
into the bottom of the furrow is fine and well mixed 
with any litter present. In many places farmers do 
not seem to realize the importance of a close capil¬ 
lary union between soil and subsoil. They will tell 
you that straw or coarse manure will “fire" the crop 
unless the season be wet, but they do not seem to 
know that firing is due to the inability of the water 
in the subsoil to get into the furrow slice where it 
could be utilized by the plant. I have seen Timothy 
sod turned over in the Spring, and the plowman 
thought he was doing a splendid job. Certainly it 
did turn over beautifully, and the furrows were 
straight; but the capillary connection between soil 
and subsoil was efficiently prevented for months. 
To do a good job of plowing takes time. A plow 
Even seed- which is deep in the ground has a heavy draft,-and 
WATER SUPPLY FROM SPRING. 
I have read the article on how to build 
a septic tank. Will you tell me iu detail 
just what to do about the water supply 
of a large farm, under the following con¬ 
ditions.- About 4.000 feet from our main house we have 
a fine spring, or series of springs, on a hillside, about 
In feet above the roof of the house, and an equal dis¬ 
tance above the barn, vegetable garden, etc. We wish 
to get our whole water supply from these springs, and 
we are proposing to build a reservoir of stone or con¬ 
crete beside the springs, and run an old iron pipe to the 
house and barn. We need water for four or five bath¬ 
rooms in several houses, for our barn, and for our 
vegetable and flower garden. IIow large a reservoir 
would you build, of what material, and in what way? 
How large a pipe would you use? And what other 
practical suggestions can you give us? Also, if we get 
the water for our barn from another source, how would 
this affect the size of the reservoir and 
pipe? As we 
ITREBIiED SAANEN 
DOE AND A COMMON 
Page 1140). 
DOE. Fig. 4.40 
to plow deeply and make a record for rapid work 
at the same time is exceedingly difficult. It is 
much easier, therefore, to do a satisfactory joh in 
the Fall than in the Spring. There is always in the 
Spring the hurry to get the crop in. Therefore, if 
the plow is cutting a deep furrow, and it is neces¬ 
sary occasionally to rest the team, there is a. tre¬ 
mendous temptation to let it run just a half inch 
shallower. It would surprise you how much lighter 
it makes the draft, and the difference in the time 
of planting the crop will make as much difference 
in the yield as the depth of plowing will now. any¬ 
way. This argument is perfectly valid at that time, 
but it does not follow that an earlier and deeper 
plowing would not produce better results than either 
of the alternatives just mentioned. Furthermore 
the soil often becomes so dry at corn planting time 
that a good job of plowing is impossible. 
are so far from the springs, every half inch in the size 
ot the pipe means a large additional expense. A. L. K. 
New York. 
I would first ascertain, by timing their flow, the 
amount of water that can be depended upon from 
the springs, and if the supply will equal the demand, 
which can be closely ascertained by al¬ 
lowing one barrel for each person, 
where bathtubs and closets are used, 
and one-half barrel for each head of 
live stock, per day. I would build con¬ 
crete reservoirs, Sxl2 feet and 6 feet 
deep; these reservoirs to have con¬ 
crete covers 6 inches thick, with a man¬ 
hole 20 inches square in the top. Such 
reservoirs would be proof against 
snakes, frogs, muskrats, etc., and would 
store about 130 barrels of water each. 
I would also recommend 1)4-inch gal¬ 
vanized pipe, supplied with cut-off 
valves at the upper and lower ends, 
and tees and plugs placed every 500 
feet along the line. These would per¬ 
mit the pumping of sediment out of the 
line, in sections, at any time. Great 
care must be taken not to have any 
high points in the line of pipe where 
air can accumulate and retard or stop 
the flow of water. If such high points 
cannot be avoided, stand pipes having 
thumb cocks inserted should be put in 
and their upper ends carefully pro¬ 
tected from frost. Air accumulating in the liue pipe 
at these points can be let out through these stand 
Pipes- At the lower end of the pipe the water should 
be discharged into a pneumatic tank of about 500- 
gallon capacity, or 100-gallon pneumatic tanks 
should be placed in each house. If the fall is 40 
feet, a pressure gauge would indicate about 17 
pounds pressure when the water is at rest, and as 
the water in a 1 Vi-inch pipe 4,000 feet long weighs 
2..>00 pounds, it is necessary to have pneumatic pres¬ 
sure to insure smooth, active flow at the faucets and 
to take off the strain which falls upon a pipe of that 
size and length where the discharge is direct. One 
and One-quarter-inch pipe of that fall and length will 
carry 150 barrels of water per day. g.-w. 
Barbados growers will experiment in shipping melons 
to New*York. It costs 25 cents each to ship and handle 
these melons. 
