d in Bulletin No. 5, published by the
association, pages 8 and 9, under Planting Directions. I will not take
time here to read them but will refer those interested to that
publication.
Much that is to be found there is unquestionably the best practice that
we know today. The importance of preventing the roots from drying out,
digging holes of sufficient size and filling with good top soil, firming
the soil well about the roots, severely cutting back after planting and
staking newly set trees if they are of appreciable size above ground,
are of the utmost importance and should be emphasized, but others of
these directions have been modified in my practice and I will relate the
unfortunate experiences which caused these changes to be made.
From the start there has been trouble in transplanting hickories,
difficulties with other trees being small in comparison. Out of a number
of fine looking little grafted hickories set out in the fall or spring
some would be sure to die. They mostly came from Mr. Jones, who, as a
rule, has furnished the finest looking hickories that I have received,
and were finely packed and seemingly ought to have lived, but only part
of them did. After losing a number out of one lot, I watched the lot
purchased next year with particular care. Three out of a lot of six,
which had put out leaves well in the spring, by the middle of July began
to show signs of distress, the edges of the leaves beginning to turn
brown which the year previous had been the beginning of the end. I knew
what had happened the year previous, felt that the trees would die if
something was not done, and did something. That something was to dig
about six quarts of chicken manure and two trowels of nitrate of soda
around the three trees that looked sick and saw that they were watered
plentifully till a heavy rain came. At first nothing was noticed, but
after a while the brown disappeared on the leaves that were only
slightly brown, while in other cases new leaves put out and finally a
second growth of shoots, very small to be sure, but the trees had been
saved. This was diametrically opposed to previous practice of putting no
manure or strong fertilizer in holes when planting the trees, but the
result was so satisfactory that I have continued to dig in about 1/4 of
a wheelbarrow of well rotted stable manure around each tree when
planting and two trowels of nitrate of soda in May when the growth
should start in the spring.
The
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