238 



terstices be filled up. By this mode of management, while 

 the completest solidity is given to the whole, the finer rami- 

 fications of the root round the nucleus are little injured or 

 cramped up, notwithstanding the retaining-bank. 



While this business is going forward, the director accu- 

 rately examines the position of the tree, first on the one side, 

 and then on the other, from the two offsets (which is tanta- 

 mount to his making the entire circuit of the tree,) and takes 

 care that it be perfectly upright ; making a due allowance 

 for any bends, or natural sweeps in the outhne of the stem 

 or top. For accomplishing this, the transverse ropes, with 

 five or six stout hands put to them, will still be able to com- 

 mand the tree ; and it is necessary that its adjustment be at 

 this time effected, in order to obviate the possibility of injur- 

 ing the roots by dragging, and consequently displacing them, 

 at a later period. By the above method of giving stability 

 to the tree, before any cover whatever is laid upon the roots 

 (which, I believe, is new, and peculiar to my practice,) the 

 discerning reader will see, that a complete safeguard against 

 wind is provided, without injury to the growth of the plant. 

 This is truly the j)lantitig of the tree : all else belongs to 

 the distribution, and the covering of the roots. 



The distribution, though secondary in point of consequence 

 to the securing of them, is a process involving much nicety 

 and difficulty, and it is the business of the director, in the 

 next place, to attend to its execution. The roots having 

 been indiscriminately bundled up in the transportation, and 

 merely untied during the fixing of the tree, are now, as may 

 be imagined, in a state of great disorder, which the process 

 of bolstering up rather tends to aggravate than improve. 

 Accordingly, all the workmen are employed to disentangle 

 them, and to stretch them out in the most regular manner 

 from the centre. The tree, as already supposed, being a 

 beech of more than eight-and-twenty feet high, with a spread- 

 ing top, the roots must be from twelve to fourteen feet long, 



