ON TREES AND SHRUBS NEWLY PLANTED. 



449 



composes it, must needs be as full of the 

 risinjr juices as a newly laid egg. 



Now, there cannot be two opinions 

 amongst practical men about this being the 

 very best state for a tree to be in at the 

 moment the fork and pick are laid to its 

 roots for removal. We may differ as to 

 the best month for removing large plants, 

 but we are all agreed — at least I hope so — 

 on the point, that every bud on the trans- 

 planted tree ought to be in the best possi- 

 ble means for a start next growing season ; 

 and it is not too much to say, that, those 

 buds left when a tree is pruned and planted 

 the same day, are just in the very worst to 

 renew their growth, because they are then, 

 like all the rest of the lower buds on the 

 tree, much less charged with sap than those 

 situated towards the top of the branches, so 

 that the most prominent buds must of ne- 

 cessity be removed in the process of pruning. 

 Not many years back, there was a wide- 

 spread controversy as to the merits of 

 pruning at the time of removing trees and 

 shrubs ; one order of practitioners main- 

 taining that not a twig nor a leaf should 

 be removed from a transplanted tree, be- 

 cause, as they affirmed, the more leaves a 

 tree possessed the more capable it must be 

 of renewing its roots ; and this idea took 

 such a firm hold of the rising generation of 

 gardeners that to this day many of them 

 believe that the more leaves a cutting has 

 the sooner it must root. Many of the older 

 members of our ancient craft scouted this 

 idea altogether, but still they were much 

 in the minority, and at last were well nigh 

 outvoted altogether. At this critical point, 

 Dr. Lindley's Theory of Horticulture was 

 announced, and now, it was thought, "mur- 

 der will out," and each party concluded that 

 if the Doctor had any brains at all he must 

 side with their view of the pruning ques- 

 tion ; at last the book appeared, and a 

 most valuable and useful book it was, is 

 now, and will be for the next two or three 

 generations. A quotation from Halt's Ve- 

 getable Statistics, on the title page, was 

 most ominous to the leaders on either side 

 of the controversy. It runs thus — " Though 

 I am very sensible that it is from long ex- 

 perience, chiefly, that we are to expect the 

 most certain rules of practice, yet it is, 

 withal, to be remembered that the likeliest 



method to enable us to make the most ju- 

 dicious observations, and to put us upon 

 the most probable means of improving any 

 art, is to get the best insight we can into 

 the nature and properties of those things 

 which we are desirous to cultivate and im- 

 prove." This only strengthened the views 

 of both parties still more firmly, as also did 

 the following remarks by the author in the 

 beginning of his preface : " It is, I con- 

 fess, surprising to me, that the real nature 

 of the vital actions" (the living principle) 

 "of plants, and of the external forces by 

 which their are regulated, should be so 

 frequently r..isapprehended even among 

 writers upon horticulture ; and that ideas 

 relating to such matters, so very incorrect 

 as we frequently find them to be, should 

 obtain among intelligent men in the present 

 stale of what I may be permitted to call 

 horticultural physiology." But the stran- 

 gest part of the story is yet to be told. 

 The Doctor proved by his " Theory" that 

 both parties were quite right, and they had 

 no occasion to make any fuss on a matter 

 so really simple. The drift of his explana- 

 tions may be summed thus : — If you re- 

 move a tree without much hurting its roots, 

 you will have no reason to prune away any 

 of the branches ; for the more leaves it has, 

 the sooner it will renew any of the roots 

 that may have received any slight injury. 

 On the contrary, if a tree is taken up bad- 

 ly, or, which is the same thing, if its roots 

 are so situated that you cannot possibly get 

 them all out without cutting part of them, 

 then some pruning is necessary, because 

 the large surface of leaves would empty the 

 tree of its juices by perspiration faster than 

 the roots in their crippled state would sup- 

 ply them. Now, any one well verged in 

 the subject, and knowing the heartburn- 

 ings which the question caused at the time, 

 must see clearly enough that the author 

 here weakened his own authority in thus 

 striving to please both panics, or, at any 

 rate, his anxiety not to displease either. A 

 commeadaJbU policy with our intercourse 

 with the world, hut the last on which an 

 independent mind should lean when deal- 

 ing on the truths of science. The real 

 state of the question stands thus, and we 

 cannot gainsay it : — No man, or set set of 

 men, ever lived, or ever shall live, accord- 



