Shade-trees in Cities 317 



the roots must be cut as little as possible, and not suffered 

 to get dry till replanted. 



There is one point which, if attended to as it is in nurseries 

 abroad, would render the tulip tree as easily transplanted 

 as a maple or a poplar. \Ye mean the practice of cutting 

 round the tree every year in the nursery till it is removed. 

 This develops a ball of fibres, and so prepares the tree for 

 the removal that it feels no shock at all.* Nurserymen 

 could well afford to grow tulip trees to the size suitable for 

 street planting and have them twice cut or removed before- 

 hand, so as to enable them to warrant their growth in any 

 good soil, for a dollar apiece. (And we believe the average 

 price at which the thousands of noisome ailanthuses that 

 now infest our streets have been sold, is above a dollar.) 

 No buyer pays so much and so willingly, as the citizen who 

 has only one lot front, and five dollars each has been no 

 uncommon price in New York for "trees of heaven." 



After our nurserymen have practised awhile this prepara- 

 tion of the tulip trees for the streets by previous removals, 

 they will gradually find a demand for the finer oaks, beeches, 

 and other trees now considered difficult to transplant for 

 the same cause, and about which there is no difficulty at all 

 if this precaution is taken. Any body can catch suckers in 

 a still pond, but a trout must be tickled with dainty bait. 

 Yet true sportsmen do not for this reason, prefer angling 

 with worms about the margin of stagnant pools when they 

 can whip the gold-spangled beauties out of swift streams 

 with a little skill and preparation, and we trust that in 

 future no true lover of trees will plant suckers to torment his 

 future days and sight, when he may, with a little more pains, 

 have the satisfaction of enjoying the shade of the freshest 

 and comeliest of American forest trees.f 



: In many continental nurseries, this annual preparation in the nur- 

 sery, takes place until fruit trees of bearing size can be removed without 

 the slightest injury to the crop of the same year. A. J. D. The same 

 method is now extensively practiced with shade trees in American nur- 

 series. -- F. A. \V. 



f It seems unkind to criticise Mr. Downing's choice of trees, but modern 

 experience does not fully bear him out. The tulip tree, which he praises 



