296 PLANTINTO. 



with a sufficiently large ball of earth, which is prevented from 

 breaking by wrapping it round tightly with matting or coarse 

 cheap convass. If the plants are very large, a simple plan, which 

 also saves a last transplanting, is to excavate a narrow trench 

 round each individual near the close of the immediately preceding 

 season of vegetation and to fill this up at once with rich manure, 

 after passing a fold of canvass or matting round the cylinder of 

 earth. All the roots extending beyond the cylinder of earth 

 should be carefully pruned off. The manure will provoke a vigor- 

 ous development of rootlets and root-hair;* none of which will be 

 able to penetrate beyond the manure. At the beginning of the 

 next ensuing summer rains the plants can be taken out with no 

 worse injury than the loss of a few, now unimportant, deep roots. 

 When the ball of earth is very heavy, boards should be placed 

 under it and derricks used to lift the plants out of the ground. 



SECTION VIII. 

 Pruning of the transplants before transport . 



The transplants must be pruned before transport in order to 

 diminish their size and weight. 



ARTICLE I- 



TO WHAT EXTENT TO PRUNE. 



In a general manner it may be said that the less a plant is 

 pruned the better, since pruning is synonymous with the reduction 

 of its absorbing and assimilating organs. Hence pruning should 

 be strictly confined to what is necessary or of obvious advantage, 

 and limited to the removal of only those parts which the plants, in 

 their condition at the time of being packed up, may lose without 

 suffering any serious injury. 



To what extent a transplant should be pruned will depend, 

 according to circumstances, on one or more of the following con- 

 siderations : 



(i) Its general contour and habit. If the transplant is healthy 

 and vigorous, it has a shape and general aspact peculiar to itself, 

 which we may call its normal form. Whenever a plant departs in 

 a marked manner from its normal form (see -p. 136), it requires to 

 be pruned. For instance, if the crown is irregularly shaped, 

 possessing too much vigour on one side or at certain points, it may 

 be benefited by the suppression or reduction of the abnormally 

 developed parts ; and when the crown has been pruned, the roots 

 will also require being primed in order to maintain the necessary 



