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city : for straw, or turf, or moss {Scottice fog), are all apt to 

 intermingle with the fibres, and cannot be separated from 

 ihem, without much mischief ensuing. The roots, for 

 obvious reasons (as their time of lying covered must always 

 be uncertain), are not now to be put up in bundles or masses, 

 but stretched out at their full length in the pit. The branches 

 and twigs of spruce or silver fir are then laid over them, in 

 at least two rows or strata in thickness ; next, eight or nine 

 inches of fine mould follow ; and last of all, sods of common 

 turf are here and there added, to increase the pressure. If 

 the subsoil be retentive of moisture, a deep cut is at the 

 same time made, at the lower edge of the excavation, in 

 order that the water may not stagnate in any part. 



In this way, I have often found the roots of the soft-wooded 

 trees, such as the lime and the horse-chestnut, lie safely in 

 the ground for a month or six weeks, or more, when severe 

 frost happened to supervene, and stop the work of planting. 

 But as the hard-wooded kinds, especially the oak and the 

 beech, are extremely sensitive of cold or drought, it is always 

 desirable to plant them, within a week or ten days after the 

 roots have been loosened in the ground. If this be not done, 

 the latter often become discoloured by the action of the air, 

 and when blackness appears, it is a symptom oftentimes fatal 

 to the success of the plants. 



On the supposition that the tree is to be immediately re- 

 moved, it must be raised at once from the pit. It cannot 

 have escaped the intelligent reader, that if it be a subject of 

 any magnitude, say eight-and-twenty feet high, what with 

 the actual thickness of its mass of roots and earth, which 

 cannot be less than two feet, and what with the contents of 

 the trench, that have been thrown out round the bank, the 

 pit so formed must in any case be from three to four feet 

 deep. In order to bring up from the pit so heavy a load, I 

 used, some years since, to employ five and six horses, and 

 even a greater number. At present, it is done usually with 



