BRIEF REMARKS. 277 



some of them quite equal to our best of the usual class. No doubt but 

 there will be annual advances to perfection in form in this new and 

 very interesting section. They will prove a valuable addition to this 

 lovely family of flowers, similar to what has been realized by the addi- 

 tion of the fancy class of Dahlias to those we previously possessed. 



Transplanting Evergreens. — My experience in this branch of 

 gardening for the last twelve months has caused me to alter my opinion 

 of the best time in the year for performing the work. Whether 1 am 

 wrong or not, there can be no harm in telling my tale, in order that 

 gardeners may test the subject, or, at any rate, to open the question 

 once more, and to try experiments on it, and record them. Among 

 reading gardeners the question about the best time for transplanting 

 large evergreens has been settled for some years, August and September 

 being the two best months. Last year I pushed the whole month of 

 July into the scales, as being quite as good, if not better, than Sep- 

 tember for this work. Putting off the work to November, as was the 

 fashion not long ago, is certainly not the best way to succeed. The 

 large box bushes I planted last June, under a fierce hot sun and a long 

 drought, have done as well as any one could wish ; not a sprig of them 

 has died, and they are now growing as well as can be. In July and 

 August following we removed very few things ; but from last Sep- 

 tember to the end of this last May we had to move some almost 

 every week, as the alterations going on in the garden suggested ; a 

 "second thought" caused the removal, this spring, of some large speci- 

 mens that were only transplanted last autumn, and, as luck would have 

 it, these plants happened to be of different families, there being hardly 

 two of a kind which had to be thus dealt with the second time ; it 

 was from these that I took up my new notion of the best time for 

 transplanting evergreens, and the history of one specimen will show my 

 reason and meaning. 



About the end of last October we removed an evergreen Cypress 

 (Cypressus sempervirens). It was a fine plant, above twenty years 

 old, and more than that number of feet in perpendicular height ; but 

 having had two leaders near the top, the opportunity was taken advan- 

 tage of to reduce it to one leader, and the shortest being the best formed 

 one, the longest was cut off, which reduced the height of the plant two 

 or three feet. This Cypress, like all the rest of them in the garden, 

 never ceased to grow the whole winter ; and no one could see now, 

 from any indication, that it had been removed these ten years : but it 

 was transplanted twice since last autumn, first in October and again in 

 April, and both times with horse power ; but all this time it had not 

 formed one single new root, nor made the least effort to heal over the 

 ends of any damaged roots. I confess that, under the circumstances, I 

 could hardly believe all this if I had not seen it, — a fast-growing ever- 

 green removed in the autumn, and kept on growing through the mildest 

 winler any one can remember, and still, up to the very end of April, 

 not having made the least effort to increase or repair its roots. This 

 led me to examine the roots of several kinds of evergreens all over the 

 garden — those that were not transplanted as well as those that were — 

 and from the whole I have come to this conclusion, that every month 



