d
properly, get good stock (healthy and true to name), and plant it well.
I could do no more this year than to plough deep, smooth the surface,
and plant as well as I knew how. Increased fertility must come from
future cultivation and top dressing. The thing most prominent in my plan
was to get good trees well placed in the ground before cold weather set
in. At my time of life I could not afford to wait for another autumn, or
even until spring. I had, and still have, the opinion that a
fall-planted tree is nearly six months in advance of one planted the
following spring. Of course there can be no above-ground growth during
that time, but important things are being done below the surface. The
roots find time to heal their wounds and to send out small searchers
after food, which will be ready for energetic work as soon as the sun
begins to warm the soil. The earth settles comfortably about these roots
and is moulded to fit them by the autumn rains. If the stem is well
braced by a mound of earth, and if a thick mulch is placed around it,
much will be done below ground before deep frosts interrupt the work;
and if, in the early spring, the mulch and mound are drawn back, the
sun's influence will set the roots at work earlier by far than a spring
tree could be planted.

Other reasons for fall planting are that the weather is more settled,
the ground is more manageable, help is more easily secured, and the
nurserymen have more time for filling your order. Any time from October
15 until December 10 will answer in our climate, but early November is
the best. I had decided to plant the trees in this orchard twenty-five
feet apart each way. In the forty acres there would be fifty-two rows,
with fifty-two trees in each row,--or twenty-seven hundred in all. I
also decided to have but four varieties of apples in this orchard, and
it was important that they should possess a number of virtues. They must
come into early bearing, for I was too old to wait patiently for
slow-growing trees; they must be of kinds most dependable for yearly
crops, for I had no respect for off years; and they must be good enough
in color, shape, and quality to tempt the most fastidious market. I
studied catalogues and talked with pomologists until my mind was nearly
unsettled, and finally decided upon Jonathan, Wealthy, Rome Beauty, and
Northwestern Greening,--all winter apples, and all red but the last. I
was helped in my decision, so far as the Jonathans a