64 



been esteemed good turnip soil. Here, he says, they made 

 great pits, for the reception of the trees. They then cut off 

 their heads ; and, having filled the pits with a composition 

 of cow-dung diluted with water, and worked to the consistency 

 of the finest puddle or pap, they immersed the roots in it, and 

 carefully replaced the turf upon the surface, as before. These 

 limes, as Evelyn adds, " prospered rarely well,"' exposed as 

 they were, during the whole process, to the scorching rays 

 of the sun. And tliis he justly considers as " a singular 

 example of removing so great trees at such a season ;"* or, 

 in other words, that it is not easy to kill the lime, in whatever 

 way you treat it. 



But Lewis XIV. was, without doubt, the greatest trans- 

 planter of modern times, and the individual, whose example 

 operated more powerfull)'" than any other, in bringing the 

 art into fashion in Europe, in the seventeenth century. — 

 From the researches of the learned Jesuits and others, who, 

 by this Prince's order, had rendered the classics familiar to 

 the Dauphin, he learned, that the practice was well known 

 to the Greeks and Romans ; and he resolved to rival, and if 

 possible to eclipse, whatever had been done in this way, by 

 those distinguished nations. 



Accordingly, among the stupendous changes, which he 

 made on the face of nature at Versailles, and other royal 

 residences, that by means of transplanting was not omitted. 

 All the arts of ingenuity, and all the efforts of expense and 

 labour were employed, in constructing machinery for so novel 

 an undertaking. Under the direction of Le Notre, his favou- 

 rite engineer in this department,! the most extraordinary 

 feats in transplanting were performed, both at Versailles and 

 Trianon. Immense trees were torn up by the roots, erected 

 on carriages, and removed at the will and pleasure of the 

 royal planter. Almost the whole Bois de Boulogne was, in 



*Silva, Vol. I, p. 102, 205. fNoTE XIL 



