16 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
WINTER WORK ON TREES . 
Extensive Operations at the Rose Hill Nursery of Peterson 
Son, Chicago—Moving Big Trees—Big Contracts for Land, 
scape Improvement—Adaptability of Certain Varieties 
for Ornamental Work—The American White Elm. 
All who have visited the Rose Hill nursery, P. S. Peterson 
& Son, Chicago, have been much interested in the methods of 
moving large trees and the general ornamental work of this 
firm. It is probable that a number of those who attend the 
Chicagc convention next June will take advantage of the 
opportunity to visit Rose Hill. Mr. Peterson extended a 
cordial invitation last June. 
The Petersons make a specialty of moving large trees. Be¬ 
fore a large growing tree can be uprooted and replanted, an 
undertaking considered impossible of success until compara¬ 
tively recent years, there is a vast amount of preparation to be 
gone through with. The tree must be literally educated into 
a condition suitable for moving. 
Midwinter is considered by some planters the best time of 
the year for transplanting while others contend that the fall is 
the better, This season has been a phenomenal one for nur¬ 
serymen in Chicago, partly owing to the unusually large 
orders which have been received from parks in connection 
with boulevard extension and partly to the open wintei, which 
has facilitated the work. On the north, south and west sides 
of the city, as well as in many of the suburbs, the demand for 
trees has been large and the process of supplying the demand 
has necessitated the tearing up of streets in various parts of 
the city for blocks, from curb to sidewalk, to make room for 
the roots. 
MOVING BIG TREES. 
There are two reasons why the winter time is chosen for the 
removal of the trees. It is then that the trees are dormant and 
it is found to be easier when the ground is frozen to keep the 
necessarily large quantity of the native soil about the roots. 
Preliminary to transplanting, artificial means are employed 
to control the meandering of the roots which have a natural 
tendency to spread out and intertwine with the rootlets of 
other trees. To overcome these ramifications there is a 
method of literally harnessing the roots and confining them to 
a certain area. It is called dwarfing the roots. In forest- 
grown trees roots grow an average of from two to three times 
the distance from the body of the tree that the crown or limbs 
do. In such cases, before they can be dug up the task of 
dwarfing the roots is begun two to five years before. A trench 
sixteen to eighteen inches in width and three or more feet 
deep is dug around the tree on a radius of three feet from the 
trunk and the roots are severed. The excavation thus formed 
is filled with fertile black soil, inclosing the subterranean 
channels of the tree in a vertical wall. 
When the severed root-ends, hungry for food, put forth into 
the earth again, they launch in soil freshly inserted in the 
trench and are arrested there through the natural law which 
attracts the hungry whether above ground or below, to the 
source of nutriment. The black soil furnishes food enough 
for the tree and the roots search no further. The result is 
that by the time the tree is ready to be transplanted myriads 
of fibrous roots which pay tribute to the main underground 
arteries of the tree have intertwined and enmeshed themselves 
through and through the artificial barrier provided by man. 
And the latter is enabled to unearth the tree, roots and all, by 
digging around the outside of the trench filled-in. 
Then, by sliding heavy boards under the main body of the 
roots, the whole tree has been undermined and rests on a 
wooden skeleton, which is gradually lifted out of the pit by 
means of a windlass, bringing the tree with it. 
THE PLANTING. 
* 
In the planting, too, considerable ingenuity has to be exer¬ 
cised to insure growth. Sometimes in locations where the 
earth is naturally dry it is.deemed necessary to line the bed of 
the true hole with clay before planting. Moisture is arrested 
by the clay. Many trees, especially hardwood, are provided 
with a tap root whose tendency is to go downward a consider¬ 
able distance in the earth. 
By forming a pocket of clay one to two feet larger all around 
than the dimensions of the tree’s u ball ” would require and 
filling the remaining space with black earth, this objectionable 
trait of the plant is cured in the same way that its side spread¬ 
ing roots were trained. Too much irrigation, though, is worse 
than not enough, as the ground sours when it is overwet and 
refuses to nourish the roots. 
Some growers prefer to line the bottom of the bed with 
gravel, as has been done to a considerable extent in the city 
parks, where water can be readily supplied the trees by 
artificial means. 
In a hardy tree planted in the autumn or winter there is 
enough sap left to supply the needs of life during the first year. 
It is the second year that tells the story of whether it will live 
on or die. “ If the second sap goes up the tree it will live ; 
but if it does not it will die,” is an axiom which invariably 
comes true, according to horticulturists. 
By modern methods of cultivation beforehand the largest 
forest trees can be transplanted successfully. One of the 
largest ever transplanted in Chicago is the “ Lincoln elm,” 
which towers to a height of seventy feet above Lincoln and 
Peterson avenues. When it was removed from its home in the 
forest and taken to its present location, it measured three feet 
across and weighed—with a ball eight feet in diameter— 
twenty tons. During the present season several trees as large 
as twenty-eight inches have been moved. Trees are measured, 
by the way, according to their diameter ; the height rarely 
figures in the computation. The measurement is taken from 
the trunk about six inches above the ground, that height being 
the accepted point at which the diameter is most nearly 
normal. Below that there is a bulge in the trunk which would 
interfere with the measuring process ; above, the trunk is 
sometimes irregular. 
EXTENSIVE ORNAMENTAL WORK. 
William A. Peterson, son of P. S. Peterson, who went to 
Chicago from Sweden and started this nursery with a few 
acres nearly half a century ago, estimates that it now num¬ 
bers millions of plants, ranging from seedlings just coming 
out of the ground, to rugged oaks whose history antedates that 
of Chicago’s earliest white settlers. The tract includes the 
“ big woods,” in which there are spots that have never been 
marred by the hand of man, and in decided contrast to this, 
there is a peony field covering acres and which, when in bloom, 
suggests a sea of color. 
