676 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



impracticable. As, however, the lalter ia a trou- 

 blesome and very difficult operation, even when 

 trees arc only ten or twelve leei high, it has been, 

 from time out olmind, the custom of skiliiii plant- 

 ers to prepare such trees for removal by culling 

 back tiieir main roots one year belbre they are to 

 be transplanted ; il' this very simple operation is 

 properly performed, all the principal limbs, so am- 

 putated, will emit young fibres in abundance from 

 their extremities, and the gardener, (rom knowing 

 where to find those roots, can easily take them up 

 without material injury. In order lo eflecl the 

 eame end, but in another way, the following expe- 

 dient has been occasionally employed lor large 

 trees. A deep trench has been opened, in mid- 

 winter, round a stem, at such a distance as to be 

 clear ol the principal fibres; the tree has then 

 been carelully undermined, till, at last, the earth 

 belonging to it has (brmed a huge ball ; upon the 

 approach of frost, water has been freely poured 

 over the ball so that its whole surlace may be 

 converted into an icy mass ; in that slate it has 

 been raised by power! ul tackle, and conveyed 

 without disturbance to its intended site. 'I'his 

 operation, which is t-he Gist possible lor hardy 

 trees of great size, but expensive, and ihereiore 

 only capable of -application in a limited degiee. 

 owes its success entirely to the young and tender 

 fibres being placed in such a position that they 

 cannot be iijured by the act of transport. 



Under all ordinary circumstances, the roots must 

 necessarily be injured more or less by removal ; in 

 that case, all the larger wounds should be cut to a 

 clean smooth liice ; not in long ragged slivers, as is 

 often the case, and wliich is only subs ituting one 

 kind of mutilation (or another, but at an angle ol 

 about 45°, or less. If the ends of small roots are 

 bruised, they generally die back a little way, and 

 then emit fresh spongioles ; but the larger roots; 

 when bruised, lose flie vitality of iheir broken ex- 

 iremiiy, their ragged tissue remains open to the 

 uncontrolled iniroduction ol' water, decays in con- 

 eequence of being in contact with an excess of 

 tills fluid, and often becomes the seat of disease 

 which spreads to parts that would otherwise be 

 healthy. When, however, the wound is made 

 clean by a skilful pruner, the vessels all contract, 

 and prevent the in'roduction of an excess of water 

 into the interior ; the wound heals by granulations 

 formed by the living tissue, and the readiness with 

 which ihis takes place is in proportion to ihesmall- 

 ness of -the wound. It may be sometimes advan- 

 tageous to remove large parts of the coarser roots 

 ot u tree, even il they are not accidentally wound- 

 fd when taken up, ihe'object being to compel the 

 i)lant to throw out, in room of those comparatively 

 inactive subterranean limbs, a supply of young 

 aciive fibres. This is a common practice in the 

 nurseries in transplanting young oaks and other 

 laprooted trees, and is one of the means employed 

 by the Lancashire growers of gooseberries, in or- 

 der to increase the vigor of their bushes ; in the 

 last case, however, the operation is not confined to 

 • the time when transplantation takes place, but is 

 practised annually upon digging the gooseberry 

 borders. The reason why cutting off portions ol 

 the principal roots causes a production of fibres 

 appears to be this : the roots are produced by or- 

 ganizable matter sent downwards from the stem, 

 that matter, if uninterrupted, will flow along the 

 main branches of the roots, until it reaches the ex- 



tremities, adding largely to the wood and horizon- 

 tal growth of the root, but increasing, in a very 

 slight degree, the absorbent poweis : but if a large 

 limb of the roots is amputated, the powers of the 

 stem remaining the same, all that descending 

 organizdble mutter which would have been ex- 

 pended in adding to ilie thickness of the ampu- 

 tated part is arrested at the line of amputation; and, 

 unable to pass further on, rapidly produces granu- 

 lations, to heal the wound, and immediately after- 

 wards young spongioles, which soon establish 

 themselves in the surrounding soil, and become 

 the points of new active fibres. 



'l"he"quesiioii of pruning the branches of trans- 

 planted trees has been already sufficiently adven- 

 ed to. 



By many excellent planters, the advantage of 

 deluging the roots with water, when newly plant- 

 ed, is much insisted on ; and in the case of large 

 plants, particularly evergieens, it is, undoubtedly, 

 an essential process, partly because it causes the 

 flagging and injuied roots lo be immediately 

 surrounded by an abundant supply of liquid Ibod, 

 which, if the operation be skilfully performed, (s^^e 

 JVlacnab's Treatise, p. 24 and 25), will not subse- 

 quently fail them ; and partly because it is the 

 only means we possess of etnbedding with cer- 

 tainty all the fibres in soil. When the earth is re- 

 duced lo the state of puddle, it will settle round 

 the finest roots, and place them as nearly as pos- 

 sible in ihe same condition, witii regard to the soil, 

 that they were in belore the plants were removed. 

 But the operation ol puddling is unnecessary to 

 small plants, if removed at a proper season of the 

 year, es()ecially to deciduous trees of all kinds ; 

 and it may be very injurious. This was long 

 ayo staled by JVlr. Knight, (//ori. Trans., in., 

 159), who found by experience that when trees 

 are very much out of health, in consequence of 

 having become dry, excess ol mo'siure to the roots 

 is oltcn latal. This appears lo arise from the 

 languid powers of the plant being insufficient to 

 enable it to decompose and assimilate the water 

 rapidly introduced into its sjstera through the 

 wounds in its root, and by the hygromeirical force 

 of that part ; under sjch circumstances, water 

 will dissolve the mucilaginous and other matters 

 intended lor the support of the nascent buds, 

 which matters then puirefy, lose their nutritive 

 quality, and rapidly destroy the tissue. The 

 substitute Ibr root-watering contrived by Mr. 

 Knight in such cases was, lo keep the plants in a 

 situation shaded from the morning sun, and to 

 moisten their bark frequently; by these means, 

 water is presented to them very slowly through 

 the young cortical integument which, partaking of 

 the nature of a leaf, slowly absorbs it, probably 

 decomposes it, and transmits it laterally through 

 the litier into the alburnum, where it finds itself in 

 the ordinary channel lor the ascending sap, and 

 thus enters (he system of circulation. In this way 

 JVlr. Knight originally preserved American apple 

 trees, which reached him in the middle of April, 

 in so bad a state that they seemed " perfectly life- 

 less and dry, and much better fitted for fire-wood 

 than for planting." 



