GLEN SAINT MARY NURSERIES 
Cultural Suggestions 
Some of our customers, particularly beginners in fruit-growing, are often at a loss for 
information in relation to planting and care of an orchard. While we are always glad to give 
information in reply to specific inquiry, a certain proportion of our customers are afraid of put¬ 
ting us to some little trouble and hesitate to write us for information. We have, therefore, 
thought best to give herein some brief cultural suggestions, which we trust will be found 
helpful. 
General Remarks 
When nursery stock is received, it should be immediately unpacked from the bale or box 
and placed in a cool, shady place, and the roots and tops thoroughly wet down. Roots of trees 
should never be exposed to sun and should not be allowed to become dry. Always keep them 
covered with moss, straw or a wet blanket when planting. 
If trees cannot be transplanted immediately after they are received, they should be heeled- 
in in a cool, shady place and watered well until they can be set out. 
If trees should be delayed in transit and arrive in a dry condition, take them out of the 
package and bury for two or three days in moist earth, covering tops as well as roots. This will 
fill out shrunken stems and limbs. 
In more northern sections—and at rare intervals in the southern—trees get chilled in the 
boxes, owing to severe changes of weather en route. If any signs of ice appear in the packing 
material, bury the trees and packing material in earth, and leave for several days, or until the 
frost is thoroughly drawn out. 
Do not set trees or plants too deep, particularly oranges. One can generally judge about 
the proper depth for setting the trees by the earth-marks on the trees showing how deep they 
were in nursery rows. If set at the same depth, this will be about right. 
If the weather should become dry and hot after citrus or other evergreen trees are planted, 
they should be shaded with brush or canvas drawn over stakes on east, south and west sides, to 
prevent tops drying out and dying back. This is particularly desirable in summer planting. 
In watering, remember that one thorough drenching is worth a dozen small applications. 
This applies to water put on the soil. Tops may be sprinkled very frequently, the oftener the 
better. 
Orchard cultivation should, as a general rule, be shallow during the late spring and sum¬ 
mer months. In all sections subject to damage from cold it is desirable to turn under the cover- 
crop with a turn plow in the late fall or early winter after this cover-crop has died down ; the 
principle involved being that for frost protection purposes a grove should go into winter quar¬ 
ters with the surface of the ground entirely bare of grass and weeds. Care should be taken, 
however, that the plow does not run too deep. In sections free from frost danger, a cutaway or 
spading harrow is sometimes preferred. This cutaway or spading harrow can be used also for 
the first cultivation in the spring—running through the grove at such different angles as to cross 
and recross its own track. After first thoroughly breaking the soil in the spring, whether with 
turn plow, cutaway or spading harrow, it is better to follow with a surface-stirring and smooth¬ 
ing harrow, like the Acme. This should be run over the groves or orchards at intervals of one 
or two weeks until midsummer, the more frequently during extremely dry weather. This fre¬ 
quent, shallow cultivation forms a dust mulch, which serves to retain the moisture in the soil 
and keeps the ground in good, friable condition. 
Cotton-seed meal and organic fertilizers should be used very sparingly, if at all, in an 
orchard. Complete commercial fertilizers from mineral sources are generally better and less 
liable to injure trees, should a too liberal quantity be applied. 
The fertilizer formulas, given in these pages, are based on the needs of the usual southern 
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