77 



the time and expense of the several transplantations, the seeds 

 may be sown where the trees are intended to remain. They 

 must be sown abundantly, as they arc obnoxious to destruction by 

 various enemies. On a rocky surface, they may be cast into the 

 crevicies of the rocks, or beneath the thin soil which covers them. 

 On an open plain, they require protection, which may be found in 

 various low bushes, such as sweet fern ; or, if sown on a Avaste, 

 sterile land, they must be sown with the seeds of some quick grow- 

 ing shrub or tall grass, which shall protect them for two or three 

 years. For the first two or three years these plants are of slow 

 growth ; but after the fifth they grow very rapidly, and continue, 

 in favorable situations, to make one or two feet annually, until 

 they have reached twenty or thirty feet ; and, in case of the taller 

 species, a much greater height. The root, in most species, pene- 

 trates at once, in the first or second year, to the depths of one or 

 two feet, but never to a much greater depth. 



The evergreens are transplanted with less facility and success 



than most deciduous trees All the pines are, however, 



successfully transplanted, if sufiicient care be taken not to injure 

 the roots nor heads, and to have a pit sufficiently large for all the 

 roots to be fully spread, and not to set them too deep. The most 

 difficult are the white and pitch pines. To ensure success, these 

 should be transplanted in winter, the pits having been formed and 

 the plant to be moved having been surrounded by a circular trench 

 in the previous autumn. In this way, the whole of the roots, with 

 the frozen earth adhering, may be removed in a single fall, and 

 set at once in the pit, and surrounded by loose earth kept for the 

 purpose.* 



On account of the very valuable qualities of the wood, the hack- 

 matack (American larch) would deserve to be extensively culti- 

 vated, and there are thousands of acres of cold and swampy land 

 where it was found naturally, which are now unproductive, and 

 which might be clothed with it. It has, however, been found to 

 be far inferior, in rapidity of growth, to the European larch, which 

 very nearly resembles it in appearance and in the excellent quali- 



* White pines, ten or fifteen feet in height, have been transplanted, in 

 the autumn, and with entire success, in the grounds of H. H. Hunnewell, 

 Esq., of West Needham. 



