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When you do take the tree, follow the balled-and-bur-lapped or bare-root routine you learned at the nursery, with this addition: to make the newcomer feel more at home in your grounds, fetch with it a couple of basketfuls of the topsoil to which it is accustomed. Whichever of the two digging systems you use, don't try it without a station wagon or a pickup with a tailgate. Make yourself a skid of planking, up which to slide your load aboard, roots first. Earth-balls weigh about 100 pounds per cubic foot, and the finest tree that ever grew is not worth a hernia. Some of the thriftiest trees one sees at homes are specimens of which the owners say with fond surprise, "That one started growing all bv itself out back. So we moved it up where it would show, and just look how well it's doingl" Such trees are called "volunteers" and there seems to be something special about them. Out of the thousands of "flyers" sent off by a maple, or acorns from an oak, a few seem to have extraordinary vigor or to land in most favorable spots. Like stray kittens or puppies they will thrive where pampered thoroughbreds have pined away. This is natural selection ("survival of the fittest") at work—the principle put to work by the nurseryman when he culls seedlings to produce a strain with desired characteristics. The home owner, in a nursery plot of his own, can similarly play games with baby trees. He needs very few of the very best to supply his needs, and the effort involved is insignificant. To render his infant specimens more fit for moving in their second or third year, he can raise them in sunken cans or cartons, to get compact roots. (When they are transplanted, such roots should be separated and spread to keep them from "girdling.") Evergreens are easiest of all to bring along, as will be detailed later in some paragraphs about raising Christmas trees. When evergreens are moved, it should always be with an earth-ball, and they need no pruning above. |
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