1321 PLANTING OF WASTE LAND, 



till, at length, these fibres entirely disappear ; and 

 when this takes place, no tree of any kind can be 

 removed without endangering its life. An ash, an 

 elm, or a birch, may be transplanted with safety, 

 when it is eight or ten years old, or with careful 

 management, even after it has arrived at its full 

 growth ; and the reason is, that its roots are well 

 provided with small fibres, at every period of its age. 

 But transplant larches, Scots firs, or any other spe- 

 cies of the same family, after they have stood only 

 six or seven years in the nursery, and one-half of 

 them will infallibly perish. Let them be removed 

 at ten years old, and scarce one in a hundred will 

 survive. The spruce and the silver retain their 

 small fibres longer than the rest, and they, of course, 

 may be removed with less comparative danger at a 

 greater age than any of the other kinds ; but with 

 regard to the whole race, the assertion already made 

 will be found true ; namely, that the safest time for 

 transferring them from the nursery to waste land is, 

 when they are two years old, and that the danger 

 of removal, after this period, increases regularly with 

 their age. If any reader is inclined to doubt this, 

 I would recommend to his notice the following sim- 

 ple experiment : — Take an equal number of firs of 

 any kind, but of different ages, two years being the 



