44- Gorrie on Steuart's Planter's Guide. 



mutilation, I know, will appear an unpardonable error ; but 

 let me remark, that, "if the root suffer, so do the branches :" 

 and with all his care of the roots (and, certainly, it is very 

 great), yet a considerable proportion of the most efficient roots 

 must be displaced. If the roots and branches, previously to the 

 act of transplanting, were in a fair proportion, will the most 

 careful planter maintain that, after he removes a large tree, 

 the equilibrium still exists ? It is not enough to say that the 

 supernumerary leaves will produce fresh roots, because it 

 could be met by the assertion that supernumerary roots, even 

 supposing them to exist, would also produce fresh buds and 

 foliage. When plants are struck by cuttings, every gardener 

 knows that an excess of foliage has a tendency to exhaust the 

 natural sap in the shoot. When young shoots are used for 

 budding, if the leaves are cut off, and the ends of the shoots 

 kept moist, they will continue plump, and fit for being wrought 

 at the end of a week ; but, if they are suffered to remain on, 

 the bark will often become dry in less than two days. It may, 

 therefore, be inferred, that a given surface of foliage requires 

 a corresponding number of feeding radicles, to afford a fail- 

 supply of sap for that foliage to elaborate, in order to maintain 

 a tree in the most healthy state ; and, if the roots are dimi- 

 nished in the act of planting, the health of the tree cannot be 

 hurt, if, by judicious pruning, nearly an equal proportion of 

 foliage is displaced. In beech, however, I have found it 

 necessary to use the knife with caution ; and I have known 

 trees of this kind destroyed by excessive pruning, where no 

 transplanting took place. Deciduous trees, for the most part, 

 throw out buds to correct over-pruning : beech does not seem 

 to possess that quality. That Sir Henry's trees succeeded is 

 not to be wondered at, from the minute care with which the 

 operation was performed ; and I know of no operation where 

 care is better bestowed, nor any where I have found it so 

 necessary to remind the labourers to " take time." It should 

 be kept in view, that the removal of large trees, and the natural 

 shapes which he would allow them,- can only be practised with 

 propriety in park scenery. In the forest, the knife must be 

 used, otherwise the carpenter will find very crabbed timber. 

 This is the only point in the whole volume on which thirty 

 years' experience compels me to differ, in some measure, from 

 the intelligent author of the Planter 's Guide. Severe pruning 

 I conceive to be injurious ; judicious pruning, salutary : but no 

 pruning at all would give us forests of sheer bushes. 



The characteristics of trees most fit for transplanting, which 

 Sir Henry describes, are excellent. " Bark thick and coarse ; 

 stems stout and short ; tops extensive and spreading" (I would 



