398 



HARDY FEUIT GARDEN. 



tree is not in the state of one which has not 

 been removed. Its roots are not fully in ac- 

 tion, but from the injuries sustained in remov- 

 ing, they are capable of exercising but little 

 influence on the branches. The great point to 

 attain, in the first instance, is the renovation of 

 the roots, and that will happen only in propor- 

 tion to the healthy action of the leaves and 

 buds : if, therefore, the branches of a plant are 

 removed by the pruning-knife, a great obstacle 

 is opposed to this renovation; but if they remain, 

 new roots will be formed in proportion to their 

 healthy action. The danger to be feared is, 

 that the perspiration of the leaves tnay be so 

 great as to exhaust the system of its fluid con- 

 tents faster than the roots can restore them, and 

 in careless transplanting this may doubtless 

 happen : in such cases it is certainly requisite 

 that some part of the branches should be pruned 

 away, but no more should be taken off than the 

 exigency of the case obviously requires ; and if 

 the operation of transplanting has been well 

 performed, there will be no necessity whatever. 

 In the case of the transplantation of large trees, 

 it is alleged that branches must be removed, in 

 order to reduce the head, bo that it may not be 

 acted upon by the wind; but in general it is easy 

 to prevent this by artificial means. In the nur- 

 series it is a universal practice to prune the 

 roots of transplanted trees ; in gardens this is 

 seldom performed. Which is right? If a 

 wounded or bruised root is allowed to remain 

 upon a transplanted tree, it is apt to decay, and 

 this disease may spread to neighbouring parts, 

 which would otherwise be healthy ; to remove 

 the wounded parts of roots is therefore desir- 

 able. But the case is different with healthy 

 roots. We must remember that every healthy 

 and unmutilated root which is removed is a loss 

 of nutriment to the plant, and that too at a time 

 when it is least able to spare it. There cannot 

 be any advantage in the removal. The nursery 

 practice is probably intended to render the 

 operation of transplanting large numbers of 

 trees less troublesome ; and as it is chiefly ap- 

 plied to seedlings and young plants with a super- 

 abundance of roots, the loss in their case is, 

 therefore, not so much felt. If performed at 

 all, it should take place in autumn, for at that 

 time the roots, like other parts of a plant, are 

 comparatively empty of fluid ; but if deferred 

 till the spring, then the roots are all distended 

 with fluid, which has been collecting in them 

 during winter, and every part taken away 

 carries with it a portion of that nurture 

 which the plant had been laying up as the store 

 upon which to commence its renewed growth." 

 The practice of cutting off the whole tops as 

 well as a considerable portion of the roots of 

 young quicks or thorns, when planted for the 

 formation of hedges — a practice almost invari- 

 ably followed in Scotland — is radically wrong, 

 and hence there can be no doubt that the oppo- 

 site practice, followed in the north of England, 

 of planting them of a much larger size and 

 without any curtailment whatever, is much pre- 

 ferable, leaving whatever pruning may be neces- 

 sary for forming the fence till after the plants 

 have become thoroughly established ; and were 



the hedges in the latter case as well managed 

 afterwards as they are in the former, the ad- 

 vantage of the superior mode of planting would 

 be more evident. 



Cutting back or shortening the branches of 

 trees at transplanting is considered seldom neces- 

 sary by Hayward, who says, in "Enquiry into the 

 Causes of the Fruitfulness and Barrenness of 

 Plants and Fruit Trees," &c., p. 210 : "When 

 the plants and trees are of a proper form or figure, 

 and are removed with care at the proper season 

 of the year, it is better to observe such care in 

 removing and taking up as to do it without in- 

 jury to the roots, and to take them up suflS- 

 ciently early in the season to allow them full 

 time to recover and establish themselves, so as 

 to furnish the sap required to sustain the head 

 and branches undiminished. But if it be late 

 in the season when trees are taken up, and the 

 roots are so much diminished and injured that 

 the following season the trees cannot be fur- 

 nished with sufScient sap to sustain the head 

 and branches, or to prevent the bark and vessels 

 from becoming inflexible, it is better to head 

 them back; for as the sap-vessels of the 

 branches which form the old head will be in- 

 capable of expanding, so as to receive all the- 

 sap furnished by the roots, the second season, 

 after removal, when the roots are restored, the 

 sap will force its way out and form new branches 

 near the root : the better plan, therefore, in 

 such cases, must be to reduce the head and 

 branches just at the time the buds open in the 

 spring after planting, and to shorten them to 

 such lengths that the roots may be able to fill 

 and support them." 



Much, however, in a practical point of view, 

 depends on circumstances, such as the care 

 with which the trees have been taken up and 

 removed, their healthy and robust state, and 

 the suitableness of the soil they are planted in, 

 as well as the early season at which they have 

 been transplanted. If these be as they ought 

 to be, then in few cases is shortening back the 

 branches necessary, as, if planted sufficiently 

 early in autumn, the roots will have placed 

 themselves in a condition to supply in spring 

 all the nutriment required by the branches, 

 providing the trees are not old and of very large 

 size. Whereas, in opposite cases, when the 

 trees are carelessly taken up, and their roots 

 much broken and exposed during their transit 

 from one place to another, if they are naturally 

 weakly, or rendered so by improper management 

 previously, the soil into which they are to be 

 placed uncongenial, and the planting delayed till 

 late in spring, then either a curtailment of the 

 branches must take place, or the tree be allowed 

 to stand over for a season to become established 

 at the roots, and heading back performed the 

 following autumn. Wherever fruit trees can 

 be transplanted so as to render heading back 

 unnecessary, it is of great advantage, as such 

 trees come much sooner into a bearing state, and 

 seldom after, unless from unnecessary excite- 

 ment at the roots, require very much priming ; 

 whereas young trees once established at the 

 roots, and headed hard back, begin to grow 

 to wood vigorously, are much longer in coming 



