THE NEW FORESTRY. 151 



properly executed the trees will show it during the summer 

 by the check to their growth, which will be very short and 

 stunted. By the following autumn the trees will be ready 

 for moving, and they may be lifted each with about as much 

 soil to their roots as a man can carry, or less. In lifting, the 

 man should go round the roots outside the first cut made in 

 root-pruning, and work in with a fork till the ball is sufficiently 

 reduced, when the tree should be removed to the ground to 

 be planted, and where the holes for the trees should be pre- 

 viously prepared. In planting, the roots should be spread 

 regularly out and covered over about six inches deep, trod 

 carefully but firmly, and well watered. Large trees may be 

 moved successfully, in this way, but almost everything depends 

 on the root-pruning preparation beforehand. We have 

 advised cutting to within nine inches or one foot, but a little 

 judgment must be used. A very vigorous tree may be allowed 

 a little more room, and a weak one less, and if the ground is 

 too hard and stony to be simply cut by the spade, the tree 

 should be dug round with the narrow planting spade and 

 have its roots cut in in that way, filling in the trench again 

 afterwards. We have cut many kinds of good-sized trees in 

 this way very severely, with no more effect upon the tree than 

 just a check for the following year. It is surprising the severe 

 root-pruning that a tree will endure, so long as what is left 

 of the root is not lifted quite out of the ground and shaken 

 free of soil. Extremely few roots will keep a tree alive if 

 they have not been disturbed, and in close root-pruning a 

 few roots are always left untouched by the spade. We have 

 noticed in fir trees, root-pruned as described, that the buds 

 just expand or little more the summer following, and that the 

 year after transplanting they make good growth, showing 

 that the root-pruning of the established tree had more effect 

 than the subsequent transplanting. Proof of what we state 

 here about root-pruning is found in woods where firs have 

 been prostrated by gales. In such cases the roots are nearly 

 all torn out of the ground and exposed, only a few roots on 

 one side remaining in the soil. Yet such prostrated trees 

 live, and in some cases they have produced from their upper 

 sides a crop of poles. A case of this kind was recorded in 

 the " Field," by the proprietor, in 1898. The, plan of exten- 

 sion here recommended has these advantages, that it is not 

 expensive considering the size of the trees and the effect 

 produced at once, and that the thinnings from the other 

 plantations are utilised instead of wasted. 



