TEANSPLANTINQ EVEEGEEENS. 451 



year than the end of April or beginning of May ; at this time 

 the buds are just breaking open into leaf, and I have rarely 

 failed of success in transplanting small, or even very large old, 

 trees, (ii. 357.) Although such statements cannot be too 

 strongly contradicted as guides to practice, yet it is not difficult 

 to explain their origin. Since evergreens are never deprived of 

 their leaves, so they are never incapable of forming roots ; on 

 the contrary, they produce them abundantly all winter long, 

 and rapidly at any other period of the year which is favourable 

 to their growth ; so that they are capable of making good an 

 injury to their roots much more speedily than deciduous 

 plants : especially as in the majority of cases the roots are 

 numerous and fibrous, and not so liable to extensive muti- 

 lation when transplanted. Now, if an evergreen is planted in 

 the month of May and the weather happens to be cloudy, warm, 

 and damp, as the plant is just then commencing the renewal of 

 its growth, and is forming fresh roots abundantly, if such a 

 state of weather lasts for a week or two, there is no doubt that 

 the plant wiH succeed very weU. 



" I differ with the doctors about planting evergreens in spring; if it 

 happens to he wet weather, it may be better than exposing them to a 

 first winter ; but the cold dry winds that generally prevail in spring 

 are ten times more pernicious. In my own opinion the end of September 

 is the best season, for then they shoot before the hard weather comes." 

 — Horace Wal^ole, page 176, vol. 3. 



It is said that if a tree is just budding when planted it is in the most 

 favourable state, because it wiU. immediately make fresh roots, the act 

 of vegetation upwards being simultaneous with growth in a downward 

 direction ; and that is true. There is here, however, a fallacy ; it is 

 assumed that the upward and downward vegetation will go on when a 

 plant is transplanted as well as if it is left in its former place ; that 

 however, depends upon the external conditions to which it is exposed. 

 If the surrounding air is damp, and remains so, evaporation being thus 

 prevented for a sufficiently long time, roots will be quioldy formed, and 

 the plant will go on growing ; on the other hand, if the air is dry and 

 exhausts the branches of their moisture, new roots cannot be formed 

 and the plant will die. Life, in such a ease, is staked upon the chance 

 of the atmosphere being in a very favourable state, and the chances are 

 ten to one against its being so. The cause of death when trees are 

 removed is almost entirely, as abeady stated, that they lose the fluid 

 contained within them faster than it can be renewed, the end being the 



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