TRANSPLANTING. 193 



their respective powers, constitutes the health of the 

 plant. If the roots be diminished hy any violence, 

 the head must lose a part of its supply of nourish- 

 ment; and from the want of this it becomes and 

 remains languid until the roots recover and resume 

 their usual functions. If, therefore, any of the prin- 

 cipal roots are broken in taking up, the stumps should 

 be smoothly pruned off, to ensure the ejection of new 

 fibres therefrom : a result which invariably takes 

 place if the plant be healthy and favourably situated. 

 But whether the roots be broken or not, all the work- 

 ing outlets are more or less damaged, and conse- 

 quently incompetent to give their wonted assistance. 

 In this case the practice is to reduce the head by 

 pruning, so that no more should be required of the 

 roots than they are able to afford. 



Practitioners differ in opinion as to whether this 

 pruning of the head be right or wrong ; and also 

 about whether it be best done in the first or second 

 year after planting. Those who attribute all 

 accretion to the agency of the leaves, deem it 

 extremely erroneous to deprive a plant of any part 

 of the foliage : and therefore insist, that to cut off the 

 shoot that would be soon covered with leaves, at the 

 moment too, when the languid roots need the utmost 

 excitement would be, they think, actual murder ! On 

 the other hand admitting, as we must do, that the 

 expansion of leaves invites the ascent of the sap, and 

 thereby calls on the roots, as it were, to render instant 

 o 



