Transplanting of Trees 319 



It may be well to remark here, that before large trees arc 

 transplanted into their final situations, the latter should be 

 well prepared by trenching, or digging the soil two or three 

 feet deep, intermingling throughout the whole a liberal por- 

 tion of well decomposed manure, or rich compost. To those 

 who are in the habit of planting trees of any size in unpre- 

 pared grounds, or that merely prepared by digging one spil 

 deep, and turning in a little surface manure, it is incon- 

 ceivable how much more rapid is the growth, and how 

 astonishingly luxuriant the appearance of trees when re- 

 moved into ground properly prepared. It is not too much 

 to affirm, that young trees under favorable circumstances - 

 in soil so prepared - - will advance more rapidly, and attain 

 a larger stature in eight years, than those planted in the 

 ordinary way, without deepening the soil, will in twenty 

 - and trees of larger size in proportion; a gain of growth 

 surely worth the trilling expense incurred in the first in- 

 stance. And the same observation will apply to all plant- 

 ing. A little extra labor and cost expended in preparing the 

 soil will, for a long time, secure a surprising rapidity of 

 growth.* 



\Vhere expense is not so much an object as success, \ve cannot too. 

 deeply impress upon planters the necessity of making very deep, and very 

 wide holes, or pits, as they are called in England. These pits should be 

 four to five feet deep, and not less than ten to sixteen feet in diameter, 

 and neither round nor square, but star-shaped, or cross-shaped, of such a 

 form as would be produced by placing one equilateral triangle upon 

 another, or two parallelograms across each other, so as to form a Greek 

 cross. 



The object of departing from the square, or round form, is to intro- 

 duce the growing fibres of the young trees into the firm and poor soil, by 

 degrees, and not all at once, as in the round or square-hole manner. 



When a tree is planted in the round or square pit, surrounded outside 

 of it by poor, hard soil, it is very much in the same situation as if its roots 

 were confined in a tub or box. 



The dove-tailing, so to speak, of the prepared soil, and of the moisture 

 it will retain, with the hard, impenetrable soil by which it is surrounded, 

 will gradually prepare tin- latter for being penetrated by the roots of the 

 trees, and prevent the sides of the pit from giving the same check to those 

 roots, which the sides of the pot or tub do to the plant contained in it. 

 In the preparation of these holes, the lower spot, or hard-pan, should be 



