EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 475 



not discard a tree because his neighbor may have not 

 been successful with it. 



There are many reasons which may operate against 

 the success of a tree this year, and for several years, which 

 may disappear in time. One consideration, and that an 

 important one, is shelter. Plant a deodar cedar in the 

 middle of a large and high field, thoroughly and en- 

 tirely exposed to every blast that blows, with the full 

 force of a summer, and what is worse, a winter's sun, 

 and it is hardly possible it should survive. Plant the 

 same tree in the same place w r ith the colder winds 

 broken and kept oif by masses of evergreens, and 

 shielded from the pernicious effects of the early spring 

 sun, and the chances are your tree will succeed and 

 flourish. 



Again, persons are very apt to plant their new 

 evergreens, especially if they are rare and costly, in 

 what are called " well prepared" holes, that is, in holes 

 redolent, perhaps, with guano, and with the richest 

 compost to be obtained ; if the new plant is not killed 

 immediately by over-dosing, it is at any rate so stimu- 

 lated by excess of food as to make a succulent redun- 

 dant growth of imperfectly ripened wood, which is sure 

 to be killed back the first winter, and the tree become 

 so enfeebled as to die outright the second ; or the plant 

 may have vitality enough to struggle through this sur- 

 feit and after staggering for months, or perhaps a year 

 or so, witli this indigestion, manage to work into healthy, 

 natural, unprepared soil, and eventually become a tree. 

 Then again, our climate is constantly changing. This, we 

 think, is conceded by every one who has wintered in 

 the country the past five or ten years, and trees which 

 could not or would not stand now, may five years hence ; 

 and, lastly, a tree, like a man becomes finally more or 

 less acclimatized it may get knocked about some- 

 what at first, but eventually learns to stand up and take 

 care of itself. The Torreya, for instance (and we have 

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