me 
THE AUSTRALIAN 
GARDENER, 
————————————————EE 
September 1, 1909 
Planting Fruit Trees. 
A most remarkable experiment in 
planting fruit trees has been made at the 
Woburn, and also at the Harpenden 
Bedfordshire, Experimental Fruit Farms 
as well as at other places, From the last 
report of the former, it would appear that 
fruitgrowers ‘have been for ‘centuries 
wasting time and labor 
elaborate planting, which the report now 
declares to be quite unnecessary to ‘suc- 
cess. rete 
It is commonly thought necessary to 
prepare a large shallow hole, spreading 
out the roots in all directions, and 
arranging them near the surface with a 
slight upward turn at the ends, and then 
sifting in the soil with many precautions. 
‘on careful, 
This method of planting was tried, with 
that of crowding the roots into small 
holes, and ramming down the earth. The 
experiments were made not only at 
Woburn, but at Harpenden, Bedford, and 
other places, and 59 per cent. of the sets 
showed in fayour of ramming, 27 per — 
cent. showed no difference, and only 14 
per cent. were against ramming. 
There can, of course, be no question of 
the statements made in the above report, 
however they fly in the face of the 
generally accepted systems of  tree- 
planting. It happens, however, that our 
own experience, to some extent, bears out 
what is claimed for the system of digging 
a post-hole and ramming the earth round 
the plant. This is precisely what we did 
three or four years ago with a young 
acacia tree brought from Barcaldine. The 
tree not being needed, we made a_ hole 
close to a fence-post stuck the tree in, re- 
gardless of the position of the roots, and 
rammed the soil back against the post, thus 
jamming the tree in rammed earth. To- 
day, that young plant is a finely pro- 
portioned tree about 20 ft. in height 
growing in full luxuriance, 
It may well be that the results of the 
Woburn experiment will not find favour 
with orchardists either in the old country 
or here. Nevertheless, it is certain that 
- many will make experiments for them- 
selves, as we have done. 
cultural 
The < Agri- 
Barbados, in 
commenting on the above resulta, says, in 
News’ of 
reference to the following statement, viz 
that— y 
‘Examination of the trees shows that 
ramming has led to a copious development 
of fibrous roots. Direct experiments 
showed that the fibrous and small roots 
produced in the nursery before lifting 
play no greet part ‘as roots during the 
subsequent life of the tree; the important 
point is to induce fresh root formation 
the ramniing does this more rapidly than 
the orthodox method of planting. No 
harm was done, and sometimes even good 
resulted, when the old roots were 
deliberately damaged before planting.’ 
‘ Curators of botanic stations, ospecially 
