RANDOM NOTES ON HORTICULTURE. 



223 



least, forgoes the rich pockets of his cli- 

 ents, and delves the pregnant earth in the 

 hope of luscious rewards hereafter. The 

 merchant tarries longer at his villa; and 

 even the grocer and the soap-boiler rid 

 themselves of the cares of the shop, by 

 spending their time upon their snug su- 

 burban grass plats ; inhaling, for a portion 

 of the year, the balmy breezes of the coun- 

 try. It has become quite a mania, of late, 

 to possess a country residence ; and the 

 fruits of their well directed taste are being 

 seen all around us, on the hill-tops and in 

 the valleys. 



We have five or six large nurseries in 

 the vicinity ; but I learn that, as yet, they 

 have not generally proved profitable, but 

 are becoming more so every day, as the 

 ideas and the tastes of our people expand. 



As I intend this epistle to be of the ram- 

 bling sort, of the vine kind — clambering 

 from subject to subject — I will diverge to 

 something else. I miss, very much, the 

 able pen of Mr. S. G. Perkins from your 

 pages. I always read his experience with 

 the greatest pleasure. He gave what a 

 novice, like myself, requires, — facts, from 

 his own observation, and set them down 

 with precision, as if he really designed to 

 instruct. I consider his one article, in your 

 first volume, upon the transplanting of trees 

 in summer, worth more than fifty fold the 

 price of the book. I have, myself, been 

 quite successful in transplanting trees with 

 the leaf on; but had waited sometimes, to 

 my great inconvenience, until October. I 

 have since tried it (not with fruit trees, 

 however,) in the summer, and with the 

 precautions detailed by him, can now trans- 

 plant at any season of the year. I may, 

 hereafter, give yuu an account of some of 

 my experiments. 



In your work on "Fruits and Fruit Trees," 

 I notice that you speak of trees being in a 



dormant state. Are they ever dormant ? 

 My belief is that they are not. If you will 

 measure a tree around its girth in the fall, 

 after it has shed its leaves, and again in 

 the spring, before the buds start, you will 

 find that it has increased its size. The 

 roots are constantly in action, below the 

 influence of the frost ; and when this reach- 

 es their extremities the tree must die, I 

 intend investigating this point at some lei- 

 sure moment. How is it with evergreens ? 

 Most certainly, they are not in a dormant 

 state at any time. If this were true, a tree, 

 with all its roots exposed through the win- 

 ter — dug out, in short, — would grow if 

 planted in the spring. Some trees, it is 

 true, are very tenacious of life, and will 

 bear long transportation and great exposure ; 

 but these are only exceptions. I cannot 

 think that a tree is idle at any portion of the 

 year. Yet, such seems to be the received 

 opinion of most writers — of all, indeed, who 

 mention the subject.* 



While on the subject of trees, why is it 

 that we have no standard work, written by 

 some one who has seen and examined for 

 himself, upon the trees of America ? Mi- 

 CHAux, though the best authority, as far as 

 he goes, is incomplete. Loudon is also in- 

 complete, from the fact that he never was 

 in this country, and could know nothing ex- 

 cept what he derived from others. Browne, 

 in his preface, makes great pretensions ; 

 but is, in fact, the most incomplete and 

 unsatisfactory of all. It is a mere catch- 

 penny affair ; most of its merits being de- 

 rived, evidently, not from observation, but 

 the writings of others. It is a book much 

 like Pindar's razors — to sell. The truth is, 

 we have as yet had no one to travel through 

 our forests extensively, for the purpose of 

 studying and describing trees. Yet where 



* Trees are really dormant only when the temperature \% 

 below ilie freezing point, tliongh tliey are comparatively so as 

 sooa as the leaf falls. Eb. 



