PLANTING FRUIT TREES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 192, 10 May 1940, Page 14

PLANTING FRUIT TREES

Need For Careful Soil Preparation Having gone to the trouble of ordering the best trees of most suitable varieties, it is foolish to ruin all prospects of complete success with them by being careless when they arrive for planting. It is true that fruit trees will stand a certain amount of mishandling, but it is several years before they throw off the ill-effects, and it is by no means uncommon to find new trees failing altogether when growth is due to commence in spring. Whatever the trees or bushes you have ordered, see that they get every chance to make good new root and strong growth next spring (the critical time for all newly-planted trees) by Ida n ling carefully. There is a good deal more in fruit tree-planting than just digging a hole, burying the roots and treading soil over them, and now is Hie time to do the preparatory work. * Not that tree-planting offers any diflieulty at all, but it does mean following a more or less clear-cut routine and paying attention to certain detail: if this is done the work will be 100 per cent, successful. Briefly, the planting procedure to adopt with all trees and bushes is this, first there is the planting site to prepare. Remember that the trees will occupy I heir quarters for many years: What you leave undone before planting maybe difficult, if not impossible, to rectify afterward. 'Jibe ground must he deeply dug: any hard pan of subsoil must be broken up, not just at the exact spot, where the small tree is to be set, but for some distance out all round. ’Where a whole line of trees is to be planted, get the ground trenched. If you are planting in grassland, pare off the turf in a wide circle —at least 5 feet across—where each tree is to go. and break up the ground thoroughly to a depth of 2 feet or more. The turf can be thrown into the bottom of the hole after the subsoil has been broken. If the garden soil is sandy and light, work in plenty of rotted manure, old leaf soil, burnt garden refuse and such like: if it is very heavy ground, get it well limed, and where plums or eij-erries are to go add plenty of broken mortar rubble. Do everything possible to improve

drainage when the ground is clayey for few, if any, fruit trees succeed when their roots stand in water for five or six months in the year. With ordinary good garden soil, all that is required will be deep digging probably, but if no rotted manure can be added the least that can be done is to dress the surface with basic slag at the rate of about -Jll). to each square yard of ground and fork this in, along with all available wood ashes.