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106 HINTS ON TRANSPLANTING TREES. 



ticular, nor of the various chemical changes and combinations which must transpire in 

 them, to prepare the food of plants for absorption by the delicate spongioles of the 

 roots. Experience has taught us that trees will not live — at least, that they will not 

 flourish — on a poor soil; nor on a very thin or shallow soil, with an impenetrable 

 bottom ; nor in a very stiff, tenacious, clay soil, that bakes as bard as brick during 

 the glowing season ; nor in a wet soil, where water is stagnant about the roots. No 

 man need plant trees in any such soils, and hope for success. Trees — all trees 

 usually planted for fruit or for ornament — require a soil of at least fair average fertil- 

 ity, such as any farmer would expect to yield a good crop of grain or roots : but 

 all do not require the same degree of fertility ; for among fruits, the Peach and the 

 Cherry will yield good crops on a lighter and poorer soil than the Apple, Pear, Plum, 

 or Quince; and the Pine and Fir tribe will succeed well on light, poor soils, unsuited 

 to the Oak, the Maple, the Beech, and indeed the great mass of deciduous trees. 



On thin soils — say four or five inches deep — lying on a hard subsoil, few trees, 

 and especially fruit trees, will succeed, because the roots are confined too near the 

 surface ; and in our hot and dry summers the earth around the roots becomes parched, 

 as no moisture can ascend from the subsoil : vegetation is consequently arrested, and 

 the trees become stunted and scrubby, like the productions of arid plains. 



StiJ" clarj soils are unfavorable to the growth of trees, and more especially young 

 newly-transplanted trees. They bake on the surface, and exclude both air and moist- 

 ure, and they become so hard that the roots are unable to extend through them 

 any more than they could through a stone wall. We admit that careful and skill- 

 ful cultivators might succeed on such soils, by expending on them a great amount 

 of timely, well-directed labor, to keep them porous and friable to a reasonable depth. 

 But few will take this trouble, and therefore such soils should be avoided as far as 

 practicable. 



Wet soils are, of all the others, the most objectionable, either for fruit or orna- 

 mental plantations. Wet feet are not more ruinous to human health than a wet soil 

 is to trees. It fills up every cavity of the soil which should be open for the passage 

 of air, without which healthy nutriment for the tree can not be prepared ; destructive 

 gasses arc formed, and directly the tree declines. We have often been struck with 

 the effect of even a very trifling excess of moisture. In a row of trees descending from 

 dry land to moist, it is observed that on the dry upland the trees are vigorous, Avith 

 smooth, clean bark; but as soon as we descend to the moist places, the trees look 

 feeble, the bark is mossy, and in every part we see symptoms of decline.* 



Now, the planter who desires to ensure success, must see that his soil is not in any 

 of these extreme conditions. If it be poor, manure it liberally a year before hand, and 

 crop it with roots that will give the soil a good working, and also help to enrich it. 

 If it be shallow, deepen it, if possible, by breaking up the under stratum with the sub- 



* Planting trees in ^cH soils is a very common and fatal error. We often hear people say, " I can not plant trees in 

 my soil except in a dry time." A short time ago we were told by a friend that his gardener had not planted his trees 

 liist autwmn, because the holes he had o'ug became full of water, like so many reservoirs, before the trees arriv 

 he did not expect it would lears them till some time next spring. This is but one case out of thousands. 



