56 Transplanting of Large Trees and Cuttings. 



Heavy stones placed over the roots will sometimes serve to keep 

 them steady, as well as to keep the soil from drying. A mulching 

 of straw or litter from the woods is always useful, and sometimes 

 necessary, to keep the ground moist, and to screen it from the sun. 

 Decaying wood-chips afford a most excellent top-dressing around 

 trees of every kind. 



209. Trees should be kept free from weeds and grass. A firm 

 sod prevents the air and rains from penetrating the soil. A thin 

 covering of stable manure over the roots of trees in winter will have 

 an excellent effect upon the next year's growth. Various mineral 

 salts, such as the nitrate of soda, and the phosphate of lime, as well 

 as guano and other fertilizers, may sometimes be used to great advan- 

 tage in nurseries and orchards, and in ornamental plantations gen- 

 erally, but are usually too expensive for profitable forest-culture. 



Tlie Disadvantages of Planting Cottonwood, and otJier Trees, from Cut- 

 tings of too great Size. 



210. In the Western States, in Colorado and elsewhere, it has been 

 the custom to set out poles of cotton wood, and of some of the other 

 poplars and the willows, of considerable size, and without root or 

 branch. In some cases, telegraph poles of cottonwood have thus 

 taken root and become trees, where the soil was damp and all the 

 conditions of growth were favorable. 



211. But it has been found that such trees generally become hol- 

 low in a few years, and are short lived. The reason is obvious. 

 The end in the ground readily absorbs moisture and decays, for it 

 can never grow over like the wound formed on the trunk, after the 

 amputation of a branch, and will remain exposed to all the agencies 

 that cause decay, however vigorous the new growth may be around 

 it. The top of such a pole will become dry, and the buds that start 

 from the sides will come out at some distance below the end. This 

 dead part finally become quite rotten, leaving a cavity that grad- 

 ually extends down the trunk till it meets the one that is com- 

 ing up from below. The success that such trees promise for the first 

 few years is generally illusory, and it would be much more satisfac- 

 tory to take smaller cuttings, which would, when well supplied with 

 moisture, make a very rapid growth, and remain sound throughout. 

 They might even overtake and surpass those that were planted of 



