4 PLANTING. 



produce timber, or in nursery beds, and afterwards transplant them, 

 is a question of mere expediency. 



Where seeds of the kinds of forest-trees desired can be had at little 

 cost; where the soil is friable, is in a perfectly clean state, and consequently 

 adapted to the plough culture; where such animals as are destructive of 

 la and young" plants, as mice, rooks, and game, particularly hares and 

 rabbits are not likely to be greatly destructive; and where the cost of 

 labour is not comparatively high, then sowing the seeds of forest trees on 

 their timber sites, may be the best practice and be adopted with success. 

 But where, on the contrary, these obstructions exist or are probable, 

 transplanting select healthy trees from nursery beds, though the plants be 

 deprived of their tap roots, will be found more economical in the first 

 outlay, and in the subsequent cost of culture ; and the most profitable, as 

 affording a quicker return of profit in primings and thinnings, and will 

 produce timber in a less number of years from the time of occupying the 

 land for that purpose. 



The fibrous root is that which is most common to forest-trees. It 

 consists of numerous divisions or bundles of fibres, furnished with 

 minute spongeols, and nearly representing the divisions or ramifications 

 of the large and smaller branches and buds of the tree. 



The variety of creeping root is chiefly confined to those trees which 

 have the roots running horizontally, as in some species of poplar, elm, &c. 



The organization of the root is similar to that of the stem and branches, 

 from the pith which forms tho centre of the body to the epidermis which 

 covers the bark. Each part may be traced in uninterrupted continuation, 

 from the minutest radicle of the root to the extremity of the smallest 

 branch or bud of a tree. 



\Ylun a root of whatever kind is divided, its horizontal section exhibits 

 three distinct parts, the pith, the wood, and the bark ; and a transverse 

 section of the trunk of the tree, or of a branch, exhibits exactly the same 

 parts. 



The pith forms the central circle of a root, ft/cm, or branch : it is a 

 cellular membraneous body of a silvery white colour. As the tree or root 

 advances in age and the timber is perfected, the pith gradually loses its 

 original spongy texture, the cells of which it is composed becoming more 

 and more compressed until all appearance of it is lost in the wood, 

 excepting that the concentric circle which it occupied appears whiter than 

 the other annual layers. But although the pith thus disappears in the old, 

 it still continues in progress with the young wood of the root, stem, or 

 brandies ; and the periodical fibres or radicles of the former, and the buds 

 or embryo branches of the latter, will on examination be found to originate 

 from it. When a branch is pruned oil' close to a stem wherein, from 

 , the pitli has disappeared for some distance above and altogether from 

 below the origin of the amputated branch, no reproduction of shoots takes 

 in whatever sea-on the pruning may be performed, but should a 

 portion of the branch be left to the stem, from that buds and shoots will 

 spring. It aKo happens that when a branch is primed oil' close to a 

 ig healthy stem containing perfect and active pith, before or shortly 

 after the completion of the midsummer growth, which usually takes place 

 before the end of .July, no reproduction of shoots follows the operation, but 

 the efforts of the vital functions of the plant appear to be wholly directed 

 to cover the wound with fresh bark. Should the pruning, however, be 

 performed in spring before or shortly after the expansion of the leaves, or 

 their fall in autumn, a reproduction of buds and shoots ensues, and a 

 slower progress in the formation of new bark is apparent. 



