iSO TRA-NSPLANTINQ EVERQEEENS. 



Such being the case, an evergreen, when transplanted, is liable 

 to the same risks as deciduous plants in full leaf, with one 

 essential difference. The leaves of evergreens are provided 

 with a thick hard skin, which is tender and readily permeable 

 to aqueous exhalations only when quite young, and which 

 becomes very firm and tough by the arrival of winter, whence 

 the rigidity always observable in the foliage of evergreen trees 

 and shrubs. Such a coating as this is capable, in a much less 

 degree than one of a thinner texture, such /is we find upon 

 deciduous plants, of parting with aqueous vapour ; and, more- 

 over, its stomates are few, small, comparatively inactive, and 

 chiefly confined to the under side, where they are less exposed 

 to dryness than if they were on the upper side also. But 

 although evergreens from their structure are not liable to be 

 affected by the same external circumstances as deciduous plants 

 in the same degree, and although, therefore, transplanting an ever- 

 green in leaf is not the same thing as transplanting a deciduous 

 tree in the same condition, yet it must be obvious that the great 

 extent of perspiring surface upon the one, however low its 

 action, constitutes much difficulty, superadded to whatever 

 difficulty there may be in the other case. Hence we are 

 irresistibly driven to the conclusion that whatever care is 

 required in the selection of a suitable season, damp, and not 

 too cold, for a deciduous tree, is stUl more essential for an 

 evergreen. It is, therefore, most extraordinary that it should 

 have ever been the practice to defer the planting evergreens 

 till late in the spring upon the supposition that it is the very 

 best season for them, as if cold winds, accompanied by from 

 20° to 30° of dryness in the air, which is not more than "500 or 

 "357 of moisture, with a bright sun beating on the roots which 

 are exposed, and exciting the action of the perspiring surface 

 to the utmost extent of its power, were external conditions 

 with which the gardener has no concern ; and yet, as Macnab 

 justly observes, half a day's sun in spring and autumn will do 

 more h^wni immediately after planting than a whole week's sun 

 from morning to night in the middle of winter. 



The Holly, says a writer in the Horticultural Transactions, 

 does not succeed well, if transplanted at any other season of the 



