374 ON TRANSPLANTING TREES. 



nioval ; but, on the other hand, such root-ball placed in free light 

 soil, or in earth of a lighter nature than itself, is too apt to be- 

 come dry and caked, its natural moisture being drained off by 

 the change of site. Hence, while a light sandy soil will hardly 

 afford facilities for removing specimens without very great care, 

 and the use of machinery being necessary to hold the ball to- 

 gether, we w*ould almost prefer it to a clayey loam, if the tree 

 grown in it is to be removed to a light porous soil in its new 

 position. These difficulties, however, as we shall afterwards 

 shew, may, by treatment at the time of removal, be overcome, or 

 very much modified. 



The choice of a proper subject to operate upon, is another 

 requisite to success in transplanting. 



Tall, slender " diawn up" plants should be avoided, and also 

 such as are of flat-headed and wide-branching habit. The head 

 of the tree is the best index to its roots ; and the two extremities 

 will generally be found to be in proportion to each other. A 

 light well-branched top should be preferred, and due attention 

 must be given to the choice of a clean and particularly healthy 

 bark. Foulness, or moss covering the trunk, or inequalities of 

 texture and appearance of the bark, are, in a tree, no less certain 

 indications of a more or less diseased state of rootlets, or of some 

 inherent weakness in the constitution, than are blotches and 

 eruptions on the skin of the human species proofs of impurity of 

 blo^d. A careful survey of the general dimensions of the head 

 of the tree is likewise a very good criterion for ascertaining the 

 probable dimensions of the earth-ball requisite to be removed 

 with the plant ; and, consequently, if the specimen be a large 

 one, of the cost of labour, and probable expense attending its 

 removal. 



In an ordinary average soil, the general proportion of the 

 spread of the principal fibrous roots necessary to the tree's exis- 

 tence, is about two-thirds of the diameter of the branches in the 

 case of sapling trees of about twenty to thirty feet in height. 

 When the stem has become thicker, and the whole tree has as- 

 sumed a more " set " or mature appearance and habit, and in the 

 case of old timber trees, the rootlets will be found at a much 

 greater distance from the trunk ; and it is in this respect that 

 the chief difficulty and danger lies in removing old trees. The 

 principal feeding rootlets in such subjects are chiefly situated at 

 a considerable distance even beyond the spread of the branches, 

 and, as it would be impossible to remove the tree with a rootball 

 enveloping these necessary auxiliaries, they must be severed 

 from the tree, and thus many of its giant underground limbs 

 must be cut ; and, although many fibrous rootlets may still re- 

 main, the balance of power between head and root is lost for ever, 

 so that in its new situation the old tree like an old man, who has 



