252 THE FLORIST. 



them in an airy, open situation, but sheltered from the wind. Strong 

 healthy stocks should be obtained about the thickness of a man's 

 thumb ; the common dog- Rose can be taken up from the hedges ; 

 and I suppose the Boursault, or any other stock preferred, may be 

 obtained from any nurseryman. They should be cut off, with a 

 clean slanting cut, just above an eye or bud, any height the grower 

 wishes to have his plants ; but if worked much above four feet, the 

 wind has a very powerful effect on them when they have large heads. 

 As the young shoots, in which to insert the buds, generally break 

 from where the side-shoots have been cut, the latter should be re- 

 moved close to the stock, smoothly and nicely, but not too close. 



J. B. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSPLANTING. 



What is the secret of successful planting ? Why do some trees live, 

 and some die under the operation ? Why do they not all live ? Why 

 do any of them die ? 



Though comprising some of the simplest questions, and affording as 

 simple answers, who has ever heard a satisfactory one given ? Jupiter, 

 when he undertook to receive the complainings of the sons of men, 

 could not be more struck with the opposite nature of their wants and 

 wishes, than a new beginner in the planting line must be at the 

 varying and contradictory advice he is constantly receiving. — " Don't 

 plant in autumn," " Don't plant in spring," " Prune severely," " Don't 

 prune," "Water at planting," " Don't water ; " but we may as well 

 stop. As to reasoning on the matter, who attempts it ? Some few do ; 

 but how do they do it ? " Dogmatically and dictatorially." 



Now, if we can only demonstrate why a transplanted tree dies at 

 all, all the questions about the time and season and manner of planting 

 may be compressed into a small paragraph. It needs no reasoning to 

 tell us an umbrella is useful in rainy weather, or that a well-corked 

 bottle will keep the liquid safely inside for an indefinite period, and yet 

 these simple facts might be so confused by words, and obscured by 

 scientific verbiage, that a score of opinions might be conscientiously 

 entertained of them. This is the way errors arise in the idea of tree 

 planting. We read learned disquisitions on the functions of the leaves, 

 and their relation to the roots — of the cells and tissues, and of crude 

 sap, and sap elaborated — and after all the terms in physiology have 

 been exhausted to show the cause of the death of a transplanted tree, it 

 all amounts to this matter-of-fact conclusion : that it died through 

 being dried up. 



Through being dried up ! You may as well tell us an animal dies 

 for want of breath. And if it does, we may not be able to give the 

 breath, but we may give the necessary moisture to the tree. To make 

 the matter plain, if we take up one of two trees, and leave it exposed 

 for a few days, it dies, — it withers and shrinks away ; but the other 

 lives on as ever. Evaporation is continually going on from the branches 



