PLANTING IN EXPOSED SITUATIONS. 11 



by soil or situation to an undue extent. Nothing is 

 gained by employing large plants in exposed places. 

 On the contrary, much time is often lost by the prac- 

 tice, even though they should be in the best possible 

 condition. The larger and taller the plants, the more 

 are they exposed to the untoward circumstances con- 

 sequent on the situation.* Plants of but a few feet in 

 height, when placed in exposed situations, require the 

 assistance of a stake, or the winds quickly damage 

 them to a great extent ; and the utmost care will not 

 wholly preserve them from injury. And when others 

 of eight or ten feet in height, as are sometimes 

 employed, with the intention of producing immediate 

 effect, are placed in similar situations, they frequently 

 prove worse than useless. Two or three stakes are 

 required to each, to enable them to withstand the 

 influence of the gales ; but no amount of available 

 support will prevent them from being disturbed. The 

 action, though slight at first, is every day augmented. 

 They become loosened in the earth. Water espe- 

 cially if the soil is tenacious accumulates at the base 

 of the stem and about the roots, chilling and retarding 

 their vegetative powers. During this, rapid evapora- 

 tion is draining the tissues of the plants, the loss of 

 which their dormant powers cannot recruit. Death, 

 or an approximation, ensues. The foliage dies, and 

 their appearance is calculated to disfigure rather 



* So sensible are the Scotch planters of the disadvantage of employing 

 large trees upon their bleak mountain sides, that the neighbouring nur- 

 serymen find plants beyond two or three feet high as almost dead stock ; 

 the sale for such being so limited, that any forest trees beyond that 

 height are generally rooted out and used as fire-wood. 



