The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming.Shaw, Ellen Eddy
General
The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming.
Shaw, Ellen Eddy
Gardening -- Juvenile literature
The paths and driveway to the school were just rock masses. The first
thing was to clear out all the rock. Then loads of ashes were brought
from the houses of the different children. All the parents were glad to
get rid of the ash-dumps in the backyards. All kinds of carts were
brought into use. For a week no boy dared appear without a load of
ashes.
All these ashes were dumped into the drive and paths. Then the whole ash
layer was rolled and rolled. It finally made a good solid kind of walk.
It was the business of the tree-planting committee to have two saplings
ready by Arbor Day and to know themselves just how to plant. In the
start of this work, committees had been formed. Now these committees
were supposed to know exactly how to do the work and to procure the
necessary material for it. It was not the duty of the committee to do
all the work; by no means, or the others would not have known how to
work.
Two trees were to be planted, one little maple near the building;
another, a buttonball tree, down on the lower grade. A maple was chosen
because it was easy to get from the woods and also because the maple is
such a good all-round tree. Then later, because of a cold wind exposure
on one side of the schoolhouse it was decided to plant a screen of
little poplar trees. This was to shut off an unsightly view which could
not be remedied in any other way.
One of the girls on the tree committee suggested a poplar in place of
the maple. She was voted down. Now if quick results had been wished, of
course the poplar would have been the tree to have chosen. That was why
the poplars were chosen for screening purposes. But for permanence the
maple, the oak, the buttonball are all better. The poplar shoots up
quickly, to be sure, but again it sheds its leaves early in the season.
Its life is not as long as the oak's. There are more reasons, too. But
if you must have quick results, here is a trick. Plant first a poplar
then a maple or some other tree and so on. Later the poplars may be cut
out and you have left the fine sturdy, long-lived trees. At the same
time the poplars have tided over that in-between period. We sometimes
weary of waiting for an oak to grow sizable.
The tree planting was left until May because of the state Arbor Day. The
maple and buttonball or plane-tree were dug up by the boys in the woods
the morning of Arbor Day. The trees were chosen from a rather open part
of the wood. It is better to choose trees from the open places than
from the denser woods. Trees thus selected are far more likely to grow
on being transplanted into a place similar to that from which they came.
The boys chose trees about five feet tall. The smaller the tree the
better. The following directions were the ones agreed upon:
(1) Dig a hole large enough and deep enough to accommodate the roots
without cramping. Allow so that the tree shall sit one inch lower than
it did before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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