32 PLANTING. 



The stocks for these trees should be raised from seed of the common 

 species, to which ouch variety is nearest allied, for the nearer the connection 

 of the stock with the graft the mure lasting is the union and more perfect 

 the growth. In trees that have been grafted on unsuitable stocks, we 

 frequently see the base of the stem abruptly contracted to a smaller cir- 

 cumference than the upper portion, and vice versa, just as the stock or the 

 graft happens to possess the freest habit of growth. The stocks should 

 be planted in rows two feet apart, and should be one foot distant plant from 

 plant. When arrived at two years of transplanted growth they will be in 

 a fit state to graft. The grafts should be united to the stock as near to 

 the root as convenient. This facilitates the vigorous growth of the tree, and 

 allows of the earth being drawn up on each side to cover the clayed 

 portion of the graft. The clay should be removed from the grafts, and 

 the ties or bandages loosened when the progress of the new shoots of the 

 graft indicates the perfect completion of the process. In the spring fol- 

 lowing that in which the trees were grafted, many of them may be 

 transplanted to their permanent sites ; but it is better, as a general rule, to 

 defer transplanting until the second autumn or spring. The size of the 

 different kinds of trees most suitable for final transplanting is a point of 

 some importance, particularly when the planting is on a large scale, and 

 where the preservation of every fibre of the roots of the plants cannot be 

 accomplished without an unnecessary expense of time and labour. A 

 very young plant may be readily taken up and transplanted with its roots 

 entire; but a plant of several feet in height requires considerable care in 

 taking it up to preserve its roots from injury. The structure and the 

 functions of the roots of trees, as connected with the produce and support 

 of the plant were before described, and clearly point out the essential use 

 of the minute rootlets and their accompanying spongeols or glands to 

 the nourishment of the plant in every stage of its growth, and under every 

 change of circumstance. Accordingly we find that, if a plant is taken up 

 and transplanted with all its roots entire and uninjured, it experiences 

 scarcely any perceptible check, unless its roots are exposed to the effects 

 of the sun and wind for any considerable time, in which case it makes little, 

 if any progress for a season. A moderate degree of pruning, however, 

 of the overgrown and straggling roots of young trees, possessing the 

 reproductive power in a full degree, and of the branches of their stems, is 

 often expedient, and, when judiciously performed, is beneficial: it prevents 

 the accident of doubling 1 up the roots, or improperly disposing them in 

 the soil, an evil of worse consequences to the plant than the shortening 

 of an overgrown root, or lateral branch. To trees which possess the 

 reproductive power in a very imperfect degree, pruning the roots or 

 branches preparatory to transplanting is injurious. The facility with 

 which young plants of any kind can be taken up without hurting the 

 roots, and the slight pruning which they require at that stage of 

 growth, point out as a general rule in deciding on the most proper si/e 

 of the different species of trees for final transplanting, that the non-re- 

 productive kinds should be of the smallest si/c or earliest stage of growth, 

 and those in which the reproductive power is greatest of the largest size. 

 If we divide the stem of a Scotch fir, or a larch, a corresponding stem is 

 not reproduced; but if we cut down, in like manner, a willow, or even a 

 chestnut, or an oak, a vigorous stem will follow. Where the habit of the 

 roots is to divide into large branches, and run deep into the ground, as in 

 the case of the oak, younger plants are required for transplanting than 

 in those instances where the habit of the root is to produce numerous 

 fibres. The nature of the soil also dictates, in some measure, the size of 



