THE NEW FORESTRY. 117 



SECTION II. — DECIDUOUS OR HARD-WOOD TREES. 



These are much more easily dealt with in transplanting 

 than conifers, there being next to nothing to fear from exces- 

 sive evaporation after the fall of the leaf, and between that 

 period and the expansion of the buds in the spring, nearly all 

 the hard-woods may be transplanted in mild open weather ; but 

 autumn is the best season, for the same reasons as those given 

 in the case of conifers, viz., that the trees get established 

 before winter sets in and make a much better start in spring. 

 The fall of the leaf is usually given as the proper time to begin 

 planting, but where much work has to be done, planting may 

 begin weeks before the leaves fall from the trees. There 

 may be as much as a month's difference in the time £>f the 

 general fall of the leaf, one year with another, so much depends 

 on the weather. The real test of the fitness of the trees for 

 removal is the hardness and maturity of the current year's 

 wood, and these conditions exist long before the leaves fall. 

 We have transplanted deciduous species successfully in large 

 quantities while the leaves were still green, in autumn, the leaves 

 usually turning yellow and falling off soon after planting. 

 We refer to this matter more particularly because the " fall 

 of the leaf " is the guide usually given by foresters for begin- 

 ning planting operations, and it means useless delay, as most 

 of our deciduous trees often retain their leaves till November, 

 and some, like the oak, even till the middle of that month, or 

 later. Gardeners have long disregarded this rule, and , often 

 transplant without risk large deciduous fruit and other trees in 

 early autumn while the leaves are still green, and severe root 

 pruning operations are often begun in July and August The 

 advantages of transplanting or root pruning early in the 

 autumn, before the fall of the leaf, are demonstrated by the 

 fact that the fruit trees so treated will often bear a crop of 

 fruit the following season — a thing which rarely or never 

 happens after winter or spring planting or root pruning. 



