jTHE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 



211 



United States, will find that it is like un- 

 dertaking to besiege Gibraltar with cross- 

 bows. The trees start into leaf, and all 

 promises well ; but, unless under very fa- 

 vorable circumstances, the leaves beggar 

 the roots, by their demands for more sap, 

 before August is half over. 



We mean to be understood, therefore, 

 that we think it safest in practice, in this 

 part of the world, when you are about to 

 plant a tree deprived of part of its roots, to 

 reduce the branches a little below this same 

 proportion. To reduce them to precisely 

 an equal proportion, would preserve the 

 balance, if the ground about the roots could 

 be kept uniformly moist. But, with the 

 chances of its becoming partially dry at 

 times, you must guard against the leaves 

 flagging, by diminishing their number at 

 the first start. As every leaf and branch, 

 made after growth fairly commences, will 

 be accompanied simultaneously by new 

 roots, the same will then be provided for as 

 a matter of course. 



The neatest way of reducing the top of 

 a tree, in order not to destroy its natural 

 symmetry,* is to shorten-back the young 

 growth of the previous season. We know 

 a most successful planter who always, un- 

 der all circumstances, shortens-back the 

 previous year's wood, on transplanting, to 

 one bud ; that is, he cuts off the whole 

 summer's growth down to a good plump 

 bud, just above the previous year's wood. 

 But this is not always necessary. A few 

 inches (where the growth has been a foot or 

 more,) will usually be all that is necessary. 

 It is only necessary to watch the growth of a 

 transplanted tree, treated in this way, with 

 one of the same kind unpruned ; to com- 

 pare the clean, vigorous new shoots, that 

 will be made the first season by the former, 



* Cuttins: off large branches at random, often quite spoils 

 {he natural habit of a tree. Shortening-back, all over the 

 be:id, does lujt affect ii in the least. I 



with the slender and feeble ones of the 

 latter, to be perfectly convinced of the 

 value of the practice of shortening-in trans- 

 planted trees. 



The necessity of a proper supply of food 

 for trees, is a point that we should not 

 have to insist upon, if starving trees had the 

 power of crying out, like starving pigs. 

 Unluckily, they have not ; and, therefore, 

 inhuman and ignorant cultivators will feed 

 their cattle, and let their orchards starve to 

 death. Now it is perfectly demonstrable, 

 to a man who has the use of his eyes, that 

 a tree can be fatted to repletion, that it 

 may be made to grow thriftily and well, 

 or that it may be absolutely starved to 

 death, as certainly as a Berkshire. It is 

 not enough, (unless a man has rich bottom 

 lands,) to 'pla7it a tree in order to have a 

 satisfactory growth, and a speedy gratifica- 

 tion in its fruit and foliage. You must 

 provide a supply of food for it at the outset, 

 and renew it as often as necessary during 

 its lifetime. He who does this, will have 

 five times the profit and ten times the satis- 

 faction of the careless and sluggish man, 

 who grudges the labor and expense of a 

 little extra feeding for the roots. The 

 cheapest and best food for fruit trees, with 

 most farmers, is a mixture of swamp muck 

 and stable manure, which has laid for some 

 two or three months together. The best 

 manure, perhaps, is the same muck, or 

 black peat, reduced to an active state with 

 wood ashes. (See vol. ii, p. 384.) A 

 wheelbarrow load of this compost, mixed 

 with the soil, for each small transplanted 

 tree, will give it a supply of food that 

 will produce a growth of leaf and young 

 wood that will do one's heart good to look 

 upon. 



Any well decomposed animal manure may 

 be freely used in planting trees ; always 

 thoroughly incorporating it with the lohole 



