APPENDIX, 477 



case, both are combined, total failure can scarcely be a matter of sur 

 prise to those really familiar with the matter. 



An uninformed spectator, who should witness for the first time the 

 removal of a forest tree, as ordinarily performed by many persons, 

 would scarcely suppose that anything beyond mere physical slrengih 

 was required. Commencing as near the tree as possible, cutting off 

 many of the roots, with the very smallest degree of reluctance, 

 wrenching the remaming mass out of their bed as speedily and almost 

 as roughly as possible, the operator hastens to complete his destructive 

 process, by cutting off the best part of the head of the tree, to make 

 "t correspond with the reduced state of the roots. Arrived at the hole 

 prepared for its reception, his replanting consists in shovelling in, while 

 the tree is held upright, the surrounding soil, paying little or no regard 

 to filling up all the small interstices among the roots ; and finally, after 

 treading the earth as hard as possible, completing the whole by pouring 

 two or three pails of water upon the top of the ground. How any 

 reflecting person, who looks upon a plant as a delicately organized indi- 

 vidual, can reasonably expect or hope for success after such treatment 

 in transplanting, is what we never could fully understand. And it has 

 always, therefore, appeared pretty evident that all such operators must 

 have very crude and imperfect notions of vegetable physiology, or the 

 structure and functions of plants. 



The first and most important consideration in transplanting should 

 be the 'preservation of the roots. By this we do not mean a certain bulk 

 of the larger and more important ones only, but as far as possible all 

 the numerous small fibres and rootlets so indispensably necessary in 

 assisting the tree to recover from the shock of removal. The coarser 

 and larger roots serve to secure the tree in its position, and convey the 

 fluids ; but it is by means of the small fibrous roots, or the delicate and 

 numerous points of these fibres called spongioles, that the food of 

 plants is imbibed, and the destruction of such is manifestly in the 

 highest degree fatal to the success of the transplanted tree. To avoid 

 this as far as practicable, we should, in removing a tree, commence at 

 such a distance as to include a circumference large enough to comprise 

 the great majority of the roots. At that distance from the trunk we 

 shall find most of the smaller roots, which should be carefully loosened 



