DIRECTION. 203 



Sometimes when the top of the main stem is de- 

 stroyed by disease or accident, one of the heretofore 

 lateral shoots takes its place, and continues the de- 

 velopment of the tree in the original direction. It is 

 often an object with the gardener to restore the sym- 

 metry of an injured tree so that its beauty may ulti- 

 mately not be impaired.^ 



Climate appears sometimes to have some influence 



' The following details as to the method pursued by Mr. McNab, of 

 the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, may not be uninteresting in this place. 

 They are from the pen of Mr. Anderson, and originally appeared in the 

 ' Gardeners' Chronicle.' 



" The mode of inducing leaders to proceed from laterals is a matter 

 of comparatively little concern among the generality of deciduous trees, 

 for they are often provided with subsidiaiy branches around the leader, 

 at an angle of elevation scarcely less perpendicular, but the laterals of 

 all Conifers stand, as nearly as possible, at right angles. Imagine the 

 consternation of most people when the leader of, say, Picea nobilis, P. 

 Nordmanniana, or P. Lowii is destroyed." 



In a specimen of the latter plant the leader had been mischievously 

 destroyed, to remedy which Mr. McNab adopted means which Mr. 

 Anderson goes on to describe. " Looking from the leader downward to 

 the first tier of laterals, there appeared to have been a number of 

 adventitious leaf-buds created, owing to the coronal bud being destroyed. 

 These were allowed to plump up unmolested until the return of spring, 

 when every one was scarified or rubbed off but the one nearest the 

 extremity. To assist its development and restrain the action of the 

 numerous laterals, every one was cut back in autiunn, and this restraint 

 upon the sap acted so favorably upon the incipient leader as to give it 

 the strength and stamina of the original leader, so that nothing detri- 

 mental was evident twelve months after the accident had happened, and 

 only a practical eye could detect that there had been any mishap at aU. 

 This beautifully simple process saved the baby tree. 



" Another example of retrieving lost leaders may be quoted as illus- 

 trative of many in similar circumstances. Picea Webbiana had its leader 

 completely destroyed down to the first tier of latei-als. There was no 

 such provision left for inducing leaf-buds as was the case with P. Lowii 

 above i-eferred to. Resort must, therefore, be had to one of the best 

 favoured laterals, but how is it to be coaxed from the horizontal position 

 of a lateral to the perpendicular position of a leader ? The uninitiated 

 in these matters; and, in fact, practical gardeners generally, would at 

 once reply, by supporting to a stake with the all-powerful Cuba or bast- 

 matting. But no. A far simpler method than that, namely, by fore- 

 shortening all the laterals of the upper tier but the one selected for a 

 leader. Nature becomes the handmaid of art here; for without the 

 slightest prop the lateral gradually raises itself erect, and takes the 

 place of the lost leader. All that the operator requires to attend to is 

 the amputation of the laterals until this adventitious fellow has gained 

 a supremacy. Singular provision in nature this, which, thanks to the 

 undivided attention of a careful observer, has been fiilly appreciated and 

 utilized." 



