TRAINING OF THE PLANTS. 195 



8. Amputation of the taproot. 



If the seedlings are allowed to remain for any considerable 

 period in the seed-beds and are to be put out directly thence into 

 the forest, the taproots should be reduced to the length required. 

 This curtailment of the taproot necessarily induces the develop- 

 ment of a compendious, bushy mass of rootlets and root-fibres, 

 thanks to which the seedlings can be extracted, transported and 

 finally put out in the forest with ease and comparative safety. 



Where, as described above on page 182, a special floor, impene- 

 trable to roots, has been formed, the shortening of the tap-root and 

 the consequent development of side-roots will take place naturally. 

 Otherwise the tap-root must be artificially shortened. As it is a 

 necessary condition that the seedlings in a seed-bed shall not be re- 

 moved for this operation (for otherwise we should have a true case of 

 transplanting into nursery lines), the tap-roots have to be amputat- 

 ed in situ. This may be done with a spade having a thin, flat blade 

 and a sharp oblique cutting edge (Fig. 48) : a square edge might, 

 as the soil is always loose, only push away the roots without going 

 through them. The amputation should be effected only after the 

 tap-root has become sufficiently lignified and before it has become 

 too strong to render the removal of so much of its lower portion 

 injurious to the seedlings. Another plan is to expose, on one side, 

 the roots of a line of seedlings, and then to cut off the tap-roots 

 with a sharp pruning knife ; but this method is obviously so labo- 

 rious that it would be better to go in at once for transplanting into 

 nursery lines, which would be not only less tedious and expensive, 

 but more effective. 



The amputation of the tap-root injures the seedlings of many 

 species, notably those which form a stout radish-like tap-root, like 

 teak, sal, &c. The pines and firs also suffer from the curtailment 

 of their tap-roots, as the section, being at once covered over with 

 a secretion of resin, cannot absorb nourishment from the soil. 

 And so the operation should be avoided, whenever possible, by 

 putting out the seedlings young or transplanting them early into 

 nursery lines. 



4. Training of the plants. 



As the seedlings raised in seed-beds are usually young and 

 small, we are seldom called upon to train them to develop in a 

 particular way. Hence nothing special need be said here on the 

 subject and the student is referred to page 205, under Nursery 

 Lines. 



