EVIL OF TRANSPLANTING. 



207 



seem to be retrograde. They will not be so far re- 

 stored even the following season as to appear in full 

 verdure ; and two years will thus pass away without 

 their making any sensible advancement. Of all 

 these results I speak with confidence, because I have 

 seen them exemplified, not in one solitary instance 

 only, but in many during a period of fourteen years 

 in which my occupation lay chiefly in the nursery. 



Some persons may object to the above experiment 

 on account of the length of time it requires. In or- 

 der, however, to form a tolerably correct estimate of 

 the merits or demerits of transplanting, it will not 

 be necessary to carry it on above three or at most 

 four years. At the end of that period, the differ- 

 ence between the untransplanted and transplanted 

 oaks, with the legitimate inferences which may be 

 drawn from that difference, will be sufficient to 

 point out to the unprejudiced the impropriety of 

 the common mode of culture. The intelligent ob- 

 server will not merely regard the disparity of growth 

 between the plants thus differently treated ; but 

 the marked disparity in their manner of growth , 

 He will notice, that, in the untransplanted oaks, the 

 vegetative power has been chiefly exerted in produc- 

 ing shoots comparatively few in number, but strong 

 and upright ; while in the transplanted, the same 



