THE SEASON FOR TRANSPLANTING. 



would be considerably modified, the young wood would be nearly ripe, and in consequence 

 of the diminished number of leaves, there must be a corresponding diminution in the sup- 

 ply of sap required from the roots; consequently, any mutilations which might take place, 

 if trees were carefully transplanted, would not, it is reasonable to conclude, be felt to an 

 injurious extent; by the action of the mature leaves which remained, the injuries which 

 the leaves had sustained would be speedily repaired, new roots would be immediately 

 produced, and the plants would be established before winter, and be prepared to grow with 

 nearly, if not quite, their usual vigor in the following spring. 



It is now generally known that leaves, in the first stage of their existence at least, and 

 all other parts of a plant, are composed of and supported by matter which has been pre- 

 viously elaborated, or prepared by mature leaves. Every plant then contains within it- 

 self, during winter or its season of rest, a fund of organizable sap, by which its first emit- 

 ted leaves, &c. are supported. It is not, however, stored up in a fluid, but in an inspissa- 

 ted or concrete state, and before it can be made available for the support of leaves, &c., 

 it must be dissolved by aqueous sap absorbed by the roots previously to the unfolding of 

 the leaves; and in proportion to the quantity of sap thus prepared, which a plant con- 

 tains previously to the renewal of its growth in spring, so will be, in a great measure, the 

 size and vigor of the first emitted leaves and shoots. The roots of plants, then, are obvi- 

 ousljr of great importance to them during winter as well as summer, and that season 

 must therefore, I think, be the best for transplanting, which, with little risk of loss or in- 

 jury from atmospheric influences, insures the speediest renovation of the roots. 



In my earliest gardening days, long before I remember to have read any work on vege- 

 table phj^siology, so that my opinions were not influenced by any theoretical views, I had 

 arrived at the conclusions, that if I transplanted a tree soon after the leaves began to fall, 

 I should have a vigorous growth of wood, and of the smaller fruits, as the currant, a 

 good crop of fruit also, in the following summer; if I transplanted in the winter, when 

 the leaves had fallen, I should have a feeble growth of wood, and a comparatively puny 

 crop of fruit and if I transplanted in spring, when the buds were about to burst into leaf, 

 I should generally have a free growth of wood, but little or no fruit, and my subsequent 

 experience has afl'orded me no reasons for difiering materially from the above conclusions. 



By way of illustration, I may mention a somewhat remarkable instance of successful 

 transplanting at the time I recommend. A five year old tree, of the White Eagle varie- 

 ty of the gooseberry, was transplanted when the leaves in the center only, had fallen; in 

 the following summer I exhibited twenty berries, the produce of this tree, at the meeting 

 of a horticultural society I was connected with, and obtained a premium for them. I 

 never, either before or since, had a crop from that tree of equal size and beauty, nor had 

 there been twenty berries of that variety, so large, produced at any former exhibition, 

 though nurserymen who had several trees to select their fruit from, Avere members of the 

 society, and exhibitors. Now, it is evident that the tree had entirely recovered from the 

 effects of transplanting befoi'e winter, before the time had arrived when Lindlet considers 

 it safest to plant. If it had been transplanted when the leaves had fallen, I do think it 

 would have been almost impossible, however much care had been taken in the operation, 

 to have had so vigorous a growth of wood, and so fine a crop of fruit, in the following 

 summer. There would, doubtless, have been little or no difference in the amount of or- 

 ganizable sap which the tree would have contained during winter, whether it had been 

 transplanted before or after the leaves had fallen, or if it had not been transplanted at all. 

 The whole difference in the vigor of the tree in the following spring, under these different 

 circumstances, would have been entirely owing to the comparative activity or efficient state 



