WOODS AND COPSES. 45 



When trees are removed from the feed-bed, 

 whatever care be employed, the tap-roots, with 

 many of the lateral roots and fibres, are unavoid- 

 ably injured, and often greatly curtailed : fubfe- 

 quent removals, certainly do not tend to leflen 

 this evil. Many who have the direction of the 

 removal and replanting of feedling young foreft 

 trees, feem not fatisfied with thefe accidental di- 

 minutions of the original roots ; but cut them 

 (till farther in, and fometimes fo unmercifully, 

 that they never do more good. * We conlider 

 a tree having its original roots thus abridged, as 

 advancing pretty nearly in its nature to a cut* 

 ting, or layer, which it is well known feldom at- 

 tains to the fize of a tree of the fame kind raifed 

 from feed. In fhort, we hold that the entire pre- 

 fervation of the perpendicular, or tap root, pro- 

 je&ed from every feed by nature, with all its 

 fibres, is the fureil and moft effe&ual means of 

 preferving an undiminilhed flow of the juices of 

 the plant ; and confequently, of promoting its 

 growth and excellence : While every abridgment 



of 







* Mr Knight, that intelligent student of vegetable nature, 

 has noticed the necessity of preserving the whole roots f 

 apple plants when removed from the nursery to the field 

 He says, But in removing from the nursery to the orchard, 

 attention should be paid to leave the roots as long and as 

 * little injured as possible. ' See his excellent Treatise on 

 the Apple and Pear, 



