^10 CULTURE AXD MANAGEIMENT OF OAK, 



it is admitted that this mode of proceeding would 

 be liable to few or no objections, coidd the oak, like 

 the ash, beech, and elm, be transplanted without in- 

 jury. The pitting system enables the planter to 

 make sufficient space to contain the roots, without 

 either doubling or pruning them too closely ; it 

 makes the fixing of them an easy matter, and by ef- 

 fectually loosening the earth, takes away any ob- 

 struction which might arise from hardness to the 

 pushing of fibres. It is only fair, therefore, to al- 

 low, that could oaks at all bear transplantation y 

 scarcely any better mode of executing it, especially 

 in waste land, could be devised, than the one just 

 mentioned. But if, as we have already seen, that 

 operation, when performed in the most approved 

 manner, is attended with the most deleterious ef- 

 fects even in the nursery, the consequences follow- 

 ing it in the wastes and moorlands, which are allot- 

 ted to the growth of wood, let the planter do his 

 utmost, are still more pernicious. Any sort of tree 

 which has grown for a considerable time in rich cul- 

 tivated soil, where it has been habituated, so to 

 speak, with plentiful supplies of the most luxurious 

 nourishment, receives a considerable check when re- 

 moved to a situation where the sustenance is com- 

 paratively poor and scanty. Such a change must 



