THE ART OF TRANSPLANTING TREES. 345 



elaborates and prepares this food. You can, therefore, no more 

 make ^ a violeEt^ attack upon the ■ roots, -without the leaves and 

 branches suffering . harm by It, than, you can greatly injure the 

 stomach^of an animal without disturbing the vital action of all the 

 rest of its system. ■ 



In trees and plants, perhaps, this proportional dependence is 

 still greater. For instance, the leaves, and even the iark of a tree. 

 Continually act as theperspiratoiy system of that tree. . Every clear 

 day, in a good sized tree, they give off many pounds weight of 

 fluid matter, — ^being the more watery portion of the element ab- 

 sorbed by the roots. Now it is plain, that if you destroy, in trans- 

 planting, .one-third of the roots of a tree, you have, as soon as the 

 leaves expand, a third more luijgfi than you can keep in action. The 

 perspiration is vastly beyond what the roots can make good ; and 

 unless the subject is oneof unusual vitality, or the weather is such 

 as to keep down perspiration by constant dampness, the leaves must 

 flag, and the tree pajily or wholly perish. 



The remedy, in cases where you must platit a tree whose roots , 

 have '^eeii mutilated, is (after carefully paring off the ends of the 

 'wounded roots, to enable theip to heal more~ Speedily) to restore the 

 "balance of power" by bringing down the perspiratory system — in 

 other words, the branches, to a corresponding state ; that is to say, 

 in theory, if your tree -has lost a fourth of its roots, take off an 

 equal amount of its branches. 



This is the correct thecyry. The prcbCtice^ however, differs with 

 the climate where the transplanting takes place. This is evident, if 

 we remember that the.perspiration is governed by the amount of sun- 

 shine and dry air. The more .of these, the greater the demand 

 inaide for nloisture, on the roots. Hence, the reason why delicate 

 cuttings strike root readily under a bell glass, and why transplanting 

 is as easy as sleeping in rainy weather In England, therefore, it is 

 niuch easier to transplant large trees than on the, continent, or in 

 this country ; stf easy, that Sir Henry Stewart made parks of fifty 

 feet trees with his transplanting machine, almost ;as easily and as 

 quickly as Capt. Bragg makes a park of artillery. But he who 

 tries this sort of fancy work in the .bright sunshine of the United 

 States, will find that it is like undertaking to besiege Gibraltar with 



