CHAPTER V: TRANSPLANTING TREES 



FROM THE WOODS 



Perhaps it is a primitive instinct, though it is a defensible 

 and lovable one, that impels the home-maker to straighten his 

 back after digging an ample hole in the ground and betake him to 

 the woods to get a tree to set out in it. The handsomest and the 

 most grotesque of cultivated trees came originally from the wilds, 

 somewhere and at some time. 



Competition is sharp, and growth slow in thickly settled 

 places. A little tree that grows in the open has the best chance 

 for symmetry and normal development. The roots are not tangled 

 with others. Choose it, unless it be one of those tap-rooted 

 kinds whose probings extend deeper than strength and patience 

 can dig. If it is one of the fibrous-rooted tribe, dig on, in all 

 carefulness and faith. Cut a circle as wide as the tree's crown. 

 This will leave most of the roots in the earth ball. There is 

 tough sod above, which you will discard when the planting is 

 finished. It helps to hold the earth intact now. It is a long 

 job, but at last the tree is loose, and an extra bucketful of its 

 familiar earth may be dug out for use in planting. A wheel- 

 barrow or a stone boat brings the tree home; and, if equal care 

 surrounds the ceremonial of planting, it need never know of 

 the change. Most trees submit to transplanting as if it were no 

 ordeal. The safest way is to move them in their sleep before 

 the spring awakening, and while the earth is still solid and dry 

 about the roots. 



The capricious ones with long tap roots and few bushy side 

 branches must have special treatment. Small trees only are 

 safely moved. It is wise to select the tree a year beforehand, and 

 to cut off its tap root by a thrust of a sharp spade at a moderate 

 depth. It is thus forced to branch above the cut, and the next 

 spring you know just how deep to dig to get this new root system. 



The magnolias and the tulip tree have fleshy, brittle roots 

 which are easily bruised and broken it carelessly handled. Most 



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