140 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



quarter. The tree cannot now be easily planted with its roots 

 in a natural position, and, as a matter of fact, that is not 

 attempted in notch planting, the roots being simply drawn 

 under the sod at a right angle with top in the position they 

 have been trained in the nursery. 



Judging from the vast quantities of young forest trees of 

 this shape that have been turned out in the past, we should say 

 that a very large proportion of English, Scotch and Irish plan- 

 tations have been furnished with plants prepared in this way. 

 It is a practice solely confined to forestry, as gardeners never 

 practise any other method of planting than that of inserting 

 tap-roots straight down into the soil, and, in the case of trees 

 desired to root near the surface, of spreading the roots regu- 

 larly out in a circle equally round the stem. Professor Schlich, 

 in his " Manual of Forestry," vol. xi., p. 113, speaking of raising 

 plants for sylvicultural purposes on this one-sided plan, says, 

 " the result is that the plants develop a lop-sided root ; " that 

 " it may be easier to put out such plants, but the system is 

 certainly not favourable to the development of the trees grown 

 from them." He had " observed that in many cases trees 

 thirty to forty years old had not yet established a normal 

 root system, and that numerous trees are blown down for this 

 very reason." This subject has also been referred to long 

 since in the horticultural papers, and more than forty years 

 ago, Lindley, in his " Theory arid Practice of Horticulture," 

 referred to the danger of giving tree roots an unnatural shape, 

 which they are apt to retain during their life, citing the case of 

 certain pines nursed in pots in the nursery, for sale, and which 

 were continually being blown down in plantations because the 

 roots never lost the corkscrew habit which the pots gave them. 

 The subject is an important one, and we allude to it at length 

 here for that reason. 



SECTION X. THE RIGHT WAY. 



The right way to transplant a young forest tree needs but 

 a short description. Whether in the nursery or in the wood 

 the top and root of the tree should be in the same perpen- 

 dicular line, like Figure i. Of course, when trees have to be 

 transplanted several times the roots have to be shortened to 

 keep them within convenient bounds for lifting, but that is a 

 necessity of the practice and no advantage. A tree raised 

 from seed in a plantation, and never transplanted, has a 

 natural and strong grip of the ground which the transplanted 

 tree never acquires, but the planter may imitate nature to a 



