t aside in a sheltered place and covered with pine straw, leaves or
straw.

In spring, when germination has just begun in the nuts and the tiny
sprouts are beginning to appear, they should be planted in rows. The
ground should be deeply plowed, well broken up, pulverized, and made
moderately rich. Ground which produced a heavy crop of cowpeas, velvet
beans or beggarweed the previous season is excellent for the purpose.
Farm-yard manure, well decomposed and plowed in the autumn previous, is
one of the best manures to use. The ground should be lined off in
perfectly straight rows four feet apart, running east and west, that,
the buds may be inserted on the north side. The nuts should be planted
four or five inches deep, depending upon their size and the character of
the soil. Large nuts should be planted deeper than small ones, and in
heavy soils nuts may be planted somewhat nearer the surface than in
light sandy ones. The rows may be opened with a small turning plow, or,
for lesser areas, with a shovel. Place the nuts, a foot apart, carefully
in the bottom of the furrow, cover with a hoe, roll the ground if the
weather is dry, and then scarify the surface with a weeder or a light
harrow to prevent evaporation of the soil moisture. Or the ground may be
mulched with pine-straw, grass, leaves or other suitable material. If no
mulch is applied, then the surface of the ground Should be cultivated
shallow from time to time.

Some propagators have adopted the plan, with good results, of planting
the nuts in the nursery rows, in late fall.

CULTIVATION OF NURSERY SEEDLINGS.

From the time the young shoots begin to appear above the surface
frequent shallow cultivation should be given. Once every ten days or two
weeks is not too often, and the ground should be broken to a depth of
one inch or so after every shower of rain. During dry weather more
frequent cultivation, once every week, will be well repaid in the
additional growth and vigor of the seedlings. A good commercial
fertilizer, analyzing 5 per cent. phosphoric acid, 6 per cent. potash
and 4 per cent. nitrogen, may be applied to advantage at the rate of
fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds per acre. By the following
autumn, the better seedlings will have ten or twelve inches of top, and
two and a half or three feet of taproot. The following spring some may
he whip-grafted at the crown, and by June, July and August of the same
year many of them should have attained s