40 SCIENCE AND FRUIT GROWING 



outstripped the others, they always, during the first season, 

 showed a deficiency of growth extending up to 20 per cent. 

 as compared with the others. This is but natural; for some 

 interval must elapse before the new root-system which they are 

 developing can come into effective operation. 



Now, as to the application of these observations to the effect 

 of ramming trees on planting. The seat of growth in the root- 

 system of a tree is situated at the tips, just behind the root-cap, 

 and no extension of the root-system can occur if the root-tips 

 have been destroyed (see p. 2) ; but in lifting and transplanting 

 a tree, however carefully it may be done, the majority of the 

 root- tips, which are very delicate, become broken off, or dried 

 up by exposure : the continued existence of the tree, therefore, 

 is dependent on the formation of a fresh supply of actively 

 growing rootlets, which under favourable conditions are developed 

 laterally, either from special cells in the existing roots, or, in some 

 circumstances, from the base of the stem itself, and the trans- 

 planted tree is thus saved from death. The conditions essential 

 to the formation of these new rootlets are moisture and intimate 

 contact with the soil : the latter is secured more effectively by 

 ramming than is possible in any other way, and hence the 

 beneficial effect of this ramming. 



The formation of new rootlets from a transplanted tree may 

 easily be verified by lifting it a mojith or two after it has been 

 planted, when the new roots, which at that stage are almost 

 white, may easily be seen emerging from the older roots and 

 even from the stem, whilst many of the original lateral roots, even 

 those of considerable size, will be found to be practically lifeless, 

 and if they have been marked by tying silk round them, and the 

 tree has been left for a twelvemonth in the ground, the}' will be 

 found to have died off entirely. 



That ramming increases the root-formation may be seen from 

 Fig. 7, A and B, which re present typical examples of an unrammed 

 and a rammed tree lifted one year after the planting, whilst the 

 vigour of growth exhibited by these new roots may be judged 

 from another photograph, C, of a similarly treated tree, where 

 all the new roots have been painted white in order to render 

 them distinguishable from the old ones. As will be seen, a 

 large number of these new roots originate from the stem itself, 

 the exceptional vigour displayed by them being attributable 

 to the greater store of material available there to start them 

 into growth. Something more will be said later on (p. 53) of the 

 distribution of the new roots on different parts of the tree ; it 



