AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. 271 



and to make the matter more certain, on deepening the shallow bores subsequently, they 

 immediately overtook the others in quantity. These experiments were repeated in 1851 by 

 a different committee, with the same general results. 



It thus appears that an aperture half an inch in diameter is almost equally as effective as 

 one of double its size ; but, in the one case, the wound readily heals over by the growth of 

 the same season ; ki the other, the growth of several seasons will hardly close the wound, 

 endangering the vigor and health of the tree. 



On the Planting of Trees. 



The following suggestions, relative to the planting of trees, and the most appropriate 

 time for effecting the same, are communicated to the Germantown Telegraph by Thomas 

 Meehan : — 



Our readers will not, doubtless, consider the assertion as very original, that of the nume- 

 rous trees annually planted, great numbers die ; but I am not so sure that they would not 

 attribute the deaths to very opposite causes. Yet the facts of the "millions of cases" lie in 

 a nutshell. I will explain. At the outset, let it not be forgotten, that to the roots of plants 

 small rootlets or fibres are attached, and that all fluids for the support of the plant have to 

 be chiefly received through these fibres. When a tree is transplanted, many of the fibres 

 are broken off or damaged, and, if it has never been transplanted before, most of the fibres 

 being at the ends of the principal roots, far away from the base of the tree, will be left in 

 the ground, and very few come away with it. If the operation is performed late in the 

 spring, the buds burst and the leaves unfold: they ask for moisture, and if the trees have an 

 abundance of fibres, they get a fair supply ; if they have few or none, they wither and wilt, 

 and no matter how carefully planted, no matter how carefully pruned, mulched, or watered 

 afterwards, nothing but very extraordinary skill indeed can save them. 



This is speaking of trees generally. Some trees have very spongy wood, in which moisture 

 is stored or accumulated ; on this moisture they can subsist till the tree has had time to form 

 new fibres. To this class belong the ailanthus, paulownia, catalpa, some poplars, and wil- 

 lows. Others have half-fleshy roots, and can draw a small amount of moisture from these 

 for a time. The horse-chestnut, ash, lindens, many maples, and some evergreens are of 

 this kind. These do not suffer so certainly from the want of fibres as the majority of trees, 

 comprising the numerous varieties of oak, hickory, birch, beech, chestnut, &c. Now, as the 

 roots of a tree are continually forming fibres, except when actually enveloped in frozen 

 soil, it directly follows that the longer time we give a tree before the bursting of its buds, in 

 which to establish itself after transplanting, the better able will it be to meet the demands 

 of the foliage for moisture when the warm weather comes ; and this brings me at once to the 

 pith of the subject — the advantage of autumn planting. A tree planted as soon after the fall 

 of the leaf as possible will begin to form fibres at once, and continue to do so till spring 

 calls the foliage into action, when the roots will be able to meet any ordinary demand made 

 on them ; at any rate, it has a better chance than the same tree would have if planted in the 

 spring. 



I do not deny that spring planting has many favorable points of view. In my recent 

 work on trees, I have freely granted this ; and I would here even go so far with its advocates 

 as to admit that, in some cases and in skilful hands, trees can be made to do better when 

 planted eai'ly in spring than in the fall ; but, as a general rule and in general hands, and for 

 the reasons I have given, autumn is the safest, and, in many cases, the only safe time in 

 which to remove trees. 



Notes on the Grasses. 



By Rev. John Bachman, D.D., of Charleston, South Carolina. 



So much confusion has been produced by applying the same common names to grasses of 

 different species, that the agriculturist, in sending for seeds designated by the common name, 

 has often introduced either those that were of no value, or were already found growing in 



