AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. 269 



growing plant to famish, or at best attain but a stinted growth, is least in importance with 

 him. It is mainly in their effect in fattening cattle that his trees have become so obnoxious 

 in his eyes, and are falling at the hands of the axe-man. 



Mr. D. has two fields, of 30 acres each, as nearly alike in the amount and quality of pas- 

 ture they furnish as two lots well can be, where he alleges he has by repeated and varied ex- 

 periments tested the damaging effect of shade. His mode has been to select a sufficient num- 

 ber of cattle of as nearly equal quality as possible for each lot, and in the fall, when he came 

 to draw for the market, he has invariably found that while the open lot furnished a goodly 

 number in suitable condition for the first draft, it was not till the second or third drawing 

 that any could be found in the requisite condition as to flesh in the shaded. He has also, by 

 actual weighing, found a difference of 15 pounds per head increase a month in favor of open 

 fields ; and avers that, other things being equal, a lot of steers will gain as much in an open 

 field in four months of summer as they will in five months in a field where they have access 

 to shade. The cattle in the first instance feed at all hours of the day upon dry and fattening 

 grass, instead of standing under the trees, as in the second instance, until driven out by 

 hunger, and filling themselves only in the morning and evening with wet and flashy food. 

 And therefore it is that he cannot afford to keep his trees, and is hewing them down. 



Watering Transplanted Trees. 



Tke following suggestions respecting the watering of transplanted trees, are communicated 

 to the Horticulturist by Thomas Meehan, of Germantown, Pa. : — 



That a plant must have a certain amount of moisture to enable it to live, is well known to 

 every one ; and that this moisture must be absorbed through the instrumentality of the fibres 

 or small rootlets, is a no less widely-disseminated fact. When a tree is " well established" — 

 that is, has been growing for some time in a given situation — the rootlets pierce the soil, so 

 that they are in a manner encased by it. In this situation, how easy it is for them to draw in 

 their required supplies of moisture ! The communication between them and the soil is un- 

 broken, and moisture passes from one to the other by a process nearly akin to capillary 

 attraction. How important, then, that soil thrown in round roots at transplanting should be 

 finely pulverized, and that every means should be taken to induce it to enter every "hole 

 and corner!" But with the greatest possible care, this can never be done to a perfect degree. 

 The soil will still have an opportunity to sink, — that is, will be filled with large air spaces, — 

 and whatever roots may be in these cavities or air spaces will either get dried up or injured. 

 It is a good plan, and one which, in critical cases, I have often employed to advantage, to fill 

 up the hole intended for the tree with water, throwing in soil enough to make it of the con- 

 sistency of thin mortar, into which the tree is put, and the remaining soil drawn in without 

 tramping or pressure of any kind. A tree so planted will never require watering afterwards; 

 but it will require other treatment, which will be yet noticed before the end of this chapter. 



Surface-water should never be applied to a transplanted tree in the manner usually given, 

 for the following reasons : Every one knows that there are certain substances which do not 

 absorb heat readily, and which are termed good non-conductors ; and others which are soon 

 heated, or conductors. Wood is a tolerably good non-conductor, because it will not become 

 as readily heated as iron ; while brick is a better conductor of heat than clay or other soil, 

 because it sooner becomes warmed through. A large clod of earth also becomes heated 

 through in much quicker time than the same bulk of soil would have done in a well-pul- 

 verized state. This absorption of heat would not, perhaps, be of so much consequence to the 

 plant were it not for the increased impetus it gives to evaporation. A large clod of soil not 

 only soon heats through, but soon dries through ; it is a better conductor than pulverized soil. 

 It is obvious, then, that a soil is in a good condition to retain moisture about the roots of 

 newly-transplanted trees when it is as far removed from a clotty condition as possible. But 

 water, when frequently and forcibly applied to the surface, tends to harden it, and renders it 

 liable to "bake" by a very little sun; therefore, surface- watering should, if possible, be 

 avoided, as, indeed, should every thing liable to produce this effect on soils. 



The question now occurs, That if a tree has not been watered at transplanting in the man- 



