PLANT FRUIT TREES NOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 738, 10 August 1929, Page 34

PLANT FRUIT TREES NOW

The soil should be well drained for fruit trees, either natural or by drainage. They will not thrive on damp ground. The land should be dug over two or three times and worked well before planting. New land needs no manure, but if yqu wish to set an orchard on land having green crops, it is a good plan to fertilise either with plenty of barn-yard manure or turn under a growth of clover. Give the land as good a preparation as for potatoes, and your trees will show rapid growth, and will fruit earlier. Planting.—Dig holes large enough to admit the roots of the tree to spread out in their natural position; then, having the tree pruned, let one person hold it in an upright position, and the other shovel the earth, carefully putting the finest and the best from the surface in among the roots, bringing every root in contact with the soil. When the earth is nearly

filled in, a pail of water may be thrown around the roots; then fill in the remainder and tread gently with the foot. The use of water is seldom necessary, except in dry weather or late in spring. Guard against planting too deep; the trees, after the ground settles, should stand in this

respect as they did in the nursery. Trees on dwarf stock should stand sj that all the stock be under the ground and no more. In very dry-, gravelly the usual size and depth and filled in with good loamy soil. Keep grass and ground, the holes should be dug twice weeds away from trees.