6 



the first cold spell, and on the whole such winter-planting 

 is risky, and the losses greater than the gains. It is better 

 to follow the method necessary at higher altitudes and with 

 severer seasons, that is, spring-planting in soil which is 

 daily becoming warmer under the increasing power of the 

 sun. This is more conformable to the physiological life of 

 the plant, and ensures its not receiving an injurious check. 

 With this knowledge the coarse method of chopping 

 young transplants out with a spade so that they have only 

 a few black ragged stumps left in lieu of roots will never 

 be permitted. Such transplants if set in the ground must 

 begin life by callusing the many wounds in the wood- tissue 

 of their stumps, and then sending out rootlets from this 

 callus-layer, just as if they were cuttings set in to strike. 

 They have not even the chance that ordinary cuttings get, 

 for the trunk and its numerous buds make immense de- 

 mands upon the infant rootlets, far more than they can 

 satisfy. And thus the miserable thing languishes, makes 

 the poorest of growth above, and gets thrown back a season 

 or perhaps more, merely for want of reasonable care in the 

 up-take. 



9. In a tree planted in well tilled, well drained, well 

 opened soil, the advance of the root- tips is continuous till 

 the limit of the tree's requirements is reached. In general 

 one may say that the expanse of the foliage of a fruit tree 

 gives a tolerably accurate measure of the expansion of the 

 root-system under ground, but obviously the feeding-ground 

 of the roots is not close to the trunk, but in a circle, 

 whose radius is never less than half the height of the tree 

 when matured. "Whoever is aware of this phenomenon of 

 a steady advance in the roots will go dead against the 

 mischievous custom of applying irrigation -water and 

 manure in a sort of hollow dug round the base of the trunk. 

 Nor will he be a consenting party to the habit of planting 

 trees in holes cut in an impervious clayey soil which has 

 never been trenched. The normal advance of the root- 

 system is stopped by the impenetrable walls of the pit, and 

 the tree becomes unhealthy and shortlived, in spite of doses 

 of manure and unlimited irrigation. 



10. The relation of the root to the soil both as to 

 mechanical condition, water-content and chemical con- 



