The best Season for Transplanting Trees. 435 



Ed. Why, let us see. The leaves rarely fall before the 

 20th of October, and it will not generally be safe to delay 

 planting beyond the first of December, though we often have 

 favorable weather later — this is six weeks. Then the ground 

 rarely opens till the first of April, and trees are frequently in 

 bloom the first of May — making four weeks more, ten weeks 

 in all. 



Sub. According to your reckoning, we have more time 

 in the autumn than spring, which we fail to avail ourselves of 

 on account of the prevalent idea that spring is the best season. 



Ed. Just so. But this is not all. You will bear in mind 

 that winter often leaves the ground in such a wet and sodden 

 state that transplanting cannot be well done for some days, 

 and frequently a fortnight is as good as lost. While in the 

 autumn, the ground is dry, loose and friable, and the opera- 

 tion of transplanting can be done in half the time, — and infi- 

 nitely better too, — than it can in the spring. 



Sub. True enough. This condition of the soil in autumn 

 never occurred to me ; its wet state has always kept back 

 my work in spring. Why, last year I had a quantity of trees 

 to set out, and it was nearly the first of May before I could 

 finish the work. It rained from the first to the fifteenth of 

 April almost every day, and the ground was so completely 

 saturated that the holes would fill with water almost as quick 

 as they were opened. 



Ed. I recollect the time well. On the sixth of April we 

 had one foot of snow, and up to the 21st, nearly a foot of 

 rain. On the eighth of May, the cherries were in bloom ! 



Sub. This was even less time than your calculation al- 

 lowed for spring work — short enough certainly. 



Ed. So short that we may as well give up doing much 

 planting in one year, unless we take advantage of autumn too. 



Sub. Then 1 understand you to say you would plant both 

 fall and spring. 



Ed. Yes, both. 



Sub. But you do not mean to say you have no preference 

 of one over the other ? 



Ed. Certainly not. You have not heard me through. My 



