EXPERIMENTS IN TRANSPLANTING FOREST TREES. 



wisdom and grace: numberless instances might be brought forward to jjrove this, but it 

 is sufficient to point to the description of the M'ar-horse in the book of Job. 



We have now traced the varieties of taste among the earliest nations of the world : we 

 have seen that the Egyptians loved the huge and massive and heavy; that the Assyrian 

 taste was similar; that the Persians, Jews, &c., favored the more showy and magnificent; 

 we have found it grand in all. Hitherto, then, the characteristic of taste in art, has been 

 Grandeur. But in none have we found the pure, the chaste. We ask for it : the Sphinx 

 and the winged bull shake their heads, but being pressed, nod abashed to Greece. It is to 

 Greece, then, in order that we may add to the taste we have already acquired, that purity 

 which is indispensable to a right taste — it is to Greece that we must sail. 



II. T. Braithwaite. 



EXPERIMENTS IN TRANSPLANTING FOREST TREES. 



BY A. COLLIER, SOUTH GROTON, MASS. 



Respecting the transplanting of Chestnut trees, I have seen the experiment tried by 

 others, and have tried it myself, but without success. I have taken them up much the 

 same as we take up nursery trees, and planted them with care, but a speedy death was 

 sure to follow. Finding that experiment a fruitless one, I resolved to take another metliod, 

 which was to remove them from their native localities early in the spring, b}^ cutting 

 around them at a proper distance, (which was about eighteen inches or two feet from the 

 tree,) with a sharp spade, and raising them carefully with as much earth as would adhere 

 to their roots, placing them one at a time on a wheelbarrow and trundling them as gently 

 as possible to their place of destination. Having previously dug the hole, the subject Avas 

 immediately placed in it, to prevent injury from the sun or air, taking heed not to cover 

 the roots too deeply. In this way I was pretty sure of success, as I was well aware that 

 even the most tender evei'greens flourish well under such treatment, for my observation 

 and experience had abundantly proved it. 



I was considerably elated with ray experiment when I beheld the buds opening and the 

 leaves spreading out in all the grandeur and magnificence which it was wont to display in 

 its native forest. I bid my friends observe it as they passed, and signified to them that I 

 had surmounted the difficulty of transplanting a chestnut tree. My trees flourished well 

 through the summer and fall, and when the leaves were no longer an ornament, the}'' 

 drooped as usual. The next spring I observed on the opening of the buds, that the leaves 

 looked sickly and to my great mortification that my trees were gasping hard for breath, 

 and were evidently going into a decline, and finally died like their predecessors. 



The question is whether the trees died from the eifect of transplanting merely, or from 

 an exposed situation, having previously been sheltered by the woods.'' Would not a few 

 wisps of straw wound around the trunk of the trees, and some of their main branches, 

 have been a barrier against the depredations of the frost and cold, so as to innure them 

 by degrees to a more exposed situation? Is the chestnut less hardy than many other 

 deciduous trees, say the Maple, Ash, Elm and the Oak? Last February I tried the plan 

 of the frozen ball, so much encouraged in your valuable treatise upon horticulture; I 

 went to the forest to look out for a subject of experiment. Having found one, I readily 

 commenced digging around it, and to my surprise I had the task accomplished much soon 

 an I had expected. I left it to freeze; in a few days I returned with a pair o 

 stone boat, to take up my tree and transport it to the place of destination 



