I go into the woods, select a place
where it is thick with strong, young, healthy, rapid growing trees. I
commence by making a trench across so as I will get as many as I want.
I may have to destroy some until I get a right start. I then undermine,
taking out the trees as I advance; this gives me a chance not to destroy
the roots. I care nothing about the top, because I cut them into what
is called poles eight or ten feet long. Sometimes I draw them out by
hitching a team when I can get them so far excavated that I can turn
them down enough to hitch above where I intend to cut them off; by this
method I often get almost the entire root. I have three particular
points in this; good root, a stem without any blemish, and a rapid
growing tree. This is seldom to be got where most people recommend trees
to be taken from--isolated ones on the outside of the woods; they are
generally scraggy and stunted; and to get their roots you would have to
follow along way to get at the fibers on their points, without which
they will have a hard struggle to live. Another point recommended is to
plant so that the tree will stand in the direction it was before being
moved; that I never think about, but always study to have the longest
and most roots on the side where the wind will be strongest, which is
generally the west, on an open exposure.
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