The Sap is the Life of the Tree

Now is the time for planting trees. A tree should never be out of the ground more than two to four days before it is planted again. There has been a great deal of complaint lately that trees do not do well, and there are several reasons for that. The first and greatest cause is that most of the trees that are shipped here from the large nurseries at a distance are dug up by the acre in the fall and left to the mercy of the weather. Whenever there is any hard frost in winter, the frost gets down to the roots. I had some experience in that thing when I moved to my present place; I had to throw away two or three thousand trees. If the roots are injured, the tree isn't of much use. Another cause is that they are too long on the way. They lie around at the railroad depots and steamboat landings day after day, exposed to the sun and wind, and packed in such large bundles that no one man can lift them. You will find those on the outside of the bundle with all the bark rubbed off. If this is the kind of packing and treatment they receive, I don't wonder they don't do well. Yet the people of the Sound will send after such trees because they think they can get them cheaper. What is the use of a larger tree with a poor root? A one-year-old tree with a good root will make a better tree in five years than the large trees referred to. It is just as bad to keep the roots of trees out of the ground, exposed to the sun and wind, as it is to keep fish out of water. Just for this reason: the sap of a tree is the life of the tree; when you take the sap from the tree, the tree will die.