has been produced in a lighter and more porous soil. Mucky soils are too light, and should not be used for permanent nurseries, though valuable for seedlings, cuttings, and newly transplanted forest evergreens for a short period; unless the muck be underlaid by clay, and that it is near enough to the surface to be reached in the preparation of the soil, and to become mixed with its staple in cultivating it. Trees, for the orchard, should never be grown upon a mucky or peaty soil.
The different character of the roots formed by trees growing in particular soils, should not be overlooked by the propagator, since much of his reputation as a nurseryman, and the success attendant upon the labors of his customers, will depend upon the healthy development of these important organs, which have been called the mouths of plants. As elsewhere observed, peaty and mucky soils do not produce roots of a character well adapted to transplanting into upland soil. Very stiff clays furnish trees with long straggling roots that have feeble and scattered fibres; such roots do not present themselves in a good condition, nor are they easily separated from the soil, the tenacity of which often injures the slender fibrous portions, which it is desirable to preserve in transplanting. Sandy soils and sandy loams produce the very best roots, most evenly distributed, and also most easily preserved and removed when the trees are dug from the earth.
Much may be done by the intelligent cultivator, in any kind of land, to make good roots by proper treatment of his soil and trees. A thorough preparation of the ground, and disintegration of the soil, will conduce to this result; and thorough culture will maintain the good condition thus produced. Frequent transplanting will encourage the production of new roots from the cut ends of those that were ruptured in digging, and these will be within reach at the next removal. When taking up young trees, or when setting out seedlings in the nursery rows, the tap roots, and indeed all long straggling roots, should be cut back, with a view to producing the same result. When trees have remained for three or four years in the nursery rows, the fibres will have extended so far in search of food and moisture, that in digging them, the best portions of the roots will be left in the ground, and the young trees will suffer upon being transplanted in this mutilated condition. Such should be root pruned the season previous to their removal. This process is performed by removing the earth on either side of the row, until the roots are exposed, when they are cut off at from ten inches to a foot, from the tree, and the earth replaced upon them, the object being the formation of new fibres that shall be within the reach of the spade when they come to be dug for the orchard. Another plan for root pruning is, to use a very sharp spade, which is set down and pressed deeply into the ground, a few inches from the tree, so as to cut all roots that pass that limit. This, though a ruder method, is followed by good results.
Digging the Trees, is a process that should be conducted upon very different principles from those exercised in grubbing a thicket. The nurseryman wishes to clear his block, but the purchaser hopes to save his trees, and to have them live, he wants a good share of their roots with them. No one need expect, however, to have anything like a large proportion of the roots of a tree removed from the ground; that is out of the question, unless they have been grown in walled stations, confining the roots, like those of green-house plants in their flowerpots. In open culture, they will have spread through the soil in every direction, and cannot be preserved and removed. Repeated root pruning will be of the greatest service in furnishing a great many fine roots within reach; but at the best, a great deal of damage is necessarily inflicted upon the roots by digging, and the older and larger the tree, the greater will be the injury, and the smaller the proportion of roots to the branches.
In digging trees, it is important to remove the soil very carefully on each side of the row to expose the roots, always holding the spade in such a position that its side and edge shall be in the direction of a radius, from the stem of the tree as a centre. Never stand facing the tree to be dug, but keep it next the elbow, at one side. On finding a root, withdraw the spade, and try again; and, having ascertained its direction, endeavor to loosen the outer extremities first. Proceed all around in this manner, and by gently swaying the trunk, the points of resistance will be indicated; these should be loosened and freed until all appear to be free, when, by grasping the collar as low down as possible, the tree is to be lifted gently and freed from the soil; no force should be used beyond that which is absolutely necessary, to lift the plant from its bed.
Fig. 23.—HARKNESS' TREE DIGGER.
In the great commercial nurseries, all this care cannot be exercised; everything must be done in the large way, and labor-saving appliances, the valuable results of human thought, but still not thinking nor observing intelligences, must be used. One of this class is the tree-digger, which, in the prairie soils, is used with very good success. It consists of a very large deep plow, without any mold-board, but with a wide sharp steel share, which is turned up at the edges, so as to cut the lateral roots at some distance from the trees. It is drawn on each side of the row, by four horses, hitched ad tandem. The trees may then easily be lifted from the loose prairie soil. The accompanying engraving shows the tree digger of Mr. E. Harkness, which is much used in the nurseries of Illinois and other Western States. The figure is sufficiently clear, without much explanation. The broad steel blade runs under the rows and is drawn by four horses, two working one before the other, or tandem, each side of the row. Some of our Western nurserymen find great advantage from the use of this digger in their free soils, and also for root pruning trees that are to remain in the rows.
In the sandy loams of New Jersey, a similar tool is used for digging peach trees, which is drawn by a span of heavy horses that are attached to the two separate beams, one being on each side of the trees. This implement is found to be entirely satisfactory in its operations.
High manuring in the nursery has been objected to by some orchard planters, who say that trees, which have been forced into a too luxuriant growth in their infancy, receive so severe a shock upon being transplanted to the open field, that they never recover. With the neglect which is so commonly accorded to young trees in the orchard, it is really wonderful how they ever survive at all, whether they had been stimulated in their culture or not. The large majority of purchasers at the nursery always select those trees which are most vigorous, notwithstanding the prejudice against stimulating the trees, and then with mutilated roots, they probably omit cutting back the limbs sufficiently, and when their neglected orchard fails, they complain of the forced trees. The change from the good cultivation of the nursery to the careless culture and even neglect of the farm, is certainly hard for the poor things to bear. Late growth, encouraged by high manuring, is injurious. There is a much more serious fault of the nursery than stimulating with manure and high cultivation, and that is the too common error of crowding the trees; but even this has its origin partly with the purchaser, who too often wishes to have his trees drawn up as high as possible; instead of demanding low heads he asks for high ones, and will sometimes offer a premium for trees that have grown in one season, the second from the root graft, eight or ten feet in a single shoot, so that he may at once calculate upon forming the head where he wants it, out of the reach of his horse; a calculation, however, which he will not realize.
The Preparation of the Soil for a nursery should be as deep and as thorough as possible, for some things it is best even to trench the ground; but generally, the thorough plowing, with a deep-tiller, or a trench-plow, will be sufficient, and if followed by the subsoil lifter, so much the better. One of the most intelligent horticulturists, and most successful nurserymen in the country, finds that he can produce a better result in depth and fineness of tilth, by using the Double Michigan plow, than he can with the spade. A piece of clover-sod thus plowed in the fall, and subsoiled at the same time, will be in fine order for nursery purposes, after a thorough cross-plowing and harrowing in the following spring. If the land has been under-drained, so much the better. There is little good land that would not be much improved for nursery purposes by tile draining.
If manure is to be applied, it may be spread upon the clover-sod before plowing, or it may be thrown upon the plowed ground at once or at any time during the winter, to be worked into the soil by the spring plowing; if composted, it may be spread just before the spring stirring.
Laying
