THE NEW FORESTRY. 113 



CHAPTER IX. 

 SEASON TO PLANT FOREST TREES. 



Comfera.rTrBardwoods. 



SECTION I. — CONIFERA. 



No question connected with forestry has exercised the 

 minds of foresters and their employers more than this. Which 

 is the best season for transplanting — spring or autumn — has 

 been a much debated subject The vague meaning generally 

 attached to the terms " spring " and " autumn," the frequent 

 failures at all seasons, often from causes not attributable to the 

 seasons at all, and the mistake of treating evergreen and decid- 

 uous species alike, has been at the bottom of much of the 

 difference of opinion that exists. Writing on this subject in 

 his " Theory and Practice of Horticulture," and on the failures 

 and successes of planters, Dr. Lindley says that transplanting 

 is too generally practised as an empirical art and taught 

 dogmatically. " One hardly knows," he observes, " how to 

 draw any other conclusion from the opposite opinions held by 

 planters, and the dogmatical manner in which they are too 

 often expressed." In discussing the planting of evergreen and 

 deciduous trees, Lindley lays stress on the fact that excessive 

 evaporation from the foliage, thereby overtaxing the mutilated 

 roots and causing the plant to wither up and die, is the chief 

 danger to be feared — quoting with approval from McNab the 

 words " half-a-day's sun in the spring and autumn will do more 

 harm immediately after planting than a whole week's sun from 

 morning to night in the middle of winter." The reply to the 

 last argument is, that experience has shown that the sun of 

 autumn and spring is infinitely preferable to the cold of winter, 

 for all kinds of conifers at least. Foresters hitherto have 

 generally recommended the months of November, December, 

 February, March, and April, which, with the exceptions of 

 April and the end of March, are the worst months in the whole 

 year. All the species of conifera may be transplanted at the 



