The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1906-01-25

water and sand poured in, then packed
down hard around the root The
white mark shows how far into the
ground they were set These trees did
not receive the care they should have
had, and they grew slowly at first.
have dug up quite a number of them
to see what they we're doing. and In
every case thus far they have started
like those In the picture. Their first
effort seems to be a series of tap-rooos,
which dig straight down into the
ground. The bottom of the root un-
der favorable conditions forms a cal
lus and then sends out roots just
about like a currant cutting. AS will
be seen in the picture these roots go
down. have traced them until
feel sure they reached nearly or quite
to the water level. | take 1t that
the chief object of this deep-rooted
system is to supply water to the tree.
That seems to explain why such trees
are better able to stand drought or
lack OF cultivation than trees with
most OF the roots close to the surface.
have dug up good many trees and
have spent much time in orchards
where dead trees are being pulled out.
These trees were all planted in
them, and some pains taken to spread
these roots out without cramping them.
In such orchards | have never yet
found a tree rooted as mine are. With
the large hole and long roots | rarely
find tree with any useful roots much
below two feet from the surface. On
my root-pruned trees the tap-roots are
often six feet OF more under ground.
or course we all understand that the
best feeding roots of the tree are in
the upper foot or Is inches. The fact
that under this system these upper
feeding roots are slow to start seems
to account for the slow growth OF
these trees for the first year or two.
Later, after the tap or what call
water roots" are we'll fixed, the
small feeding roots come out from be-
low the crown of the tree, and growth
comes rapidly.
This is the result OF planting in a
crowbar hole. do not practice II
now, but make large hole, and leave
on more side root.
Why? II this is a good thing why
give It up?
! do not give up the principle, but
] modify It, The crowbar hole Is 90
small that you can never be sure that
the air is kept away from the lower
/ Ar ha 10 oh al
sary to have this part of the hole
packed tight-otherwis the root will
not form a callus and will rot or dry
out. Again. where no side roots are
left, the tree as II forms a head and
stops the wind will whir about in the
hole. form large opening at the top
and often fall over II is possible
to stake tho little tree and hold It firm.
ly. but think II better to leave
short stubs at the side of the roots
pruning them from the under side. We
! then dig a hole just large enough to
hold the roots without cramping, and
pound and pack the earth solidly
not get Just the root growth shown in
the picture. but we do get. thus far
at least, much deeper start than
where the tree is planted In large
hole with long roots left on 1t. Thus
far I am unable to see any advantage
In making a great hole and leaving on
the roots. and every orchard I see dug
out stiffens my faith In the root-prun-
ing method. think any man who
knows much about trees will say that
such roots as l have pictured are
more likely to bring water In time OF
drought than the surface roots which
are found on most trees. This will
explain why I compare a root-pruned
tree to clover, and long-rooted tree
OF timothy. Observe the way these
i l.. %