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range and distribute the roots in their order, higher or lower, 

 as they proceed from the mass or nucleus ; stretching them 

 out over the bolstering of the nucleus, to their full length, 

 for which the pit must, if necessary, be enlarged. The great 

 principle in this business being to follow nature, the roots 

 must, like the branches of trees, be equally spread out. 

 Nothing like crowding or confining must take place, but all 

 must have competent spaces in which to extend, and ample 

 scope to search for the food of the plant. For this purpose 

 the minutest fibres, as well as the strongest roots, must be 

 evenly embedded in the fine mould of the pit, neither knead- 

 ing nor pounding it too firmly (as recommended by some), 

 nor leaving what is technically called false filling, or inter- 

 stitial vacuities. But the whole must gently consolidate into 

 a mass sufiiciently compact, yet porous, through which heat 

 as well as moisture, as has been already observed, may have 

 free access to the fibres, and where evaporation may proceed 

 without obstruction. 



To effect such a distribution and ordering of the roots, the 

 first thing that the principal handler has to do is, to seize 

 with one hand a parcel of the roots, and to divide them with 

 the other hand into as many tiers as can conveniently be laid 

 in the depth of the pit, allowing the strata of earth between 

 the tiers to be an inch and a half or more in thickness. He 

 then, in conjunction with his assistant, extends the larger 

 roots of the first tier to wide distances, stretching out all the 

 minor ramifications and rootlets intermediately, in the posi- 

 tion in which they should lie, so that no one shall, if possible, 

 touch another. The handlers having extended these, with 

 their various inflections, to the breadtli of six or seven inches, 

 or as far as their fingers can reach, the coverer, immediately 

 fixes them down, and secures that space with a little fine 

 mould thrown upon it the reverse way, that is, in the direc- 

 tion of the points of the fibres ; which mould is immediately 

 spread and worked in, by the hands of the workmen or 



