EUROllS IN rilOPAGATING OAK. 



1by the dryness of the weather, at the critical period 

 when the plants should begin to vegetate. As far 

 as regards the fir tribes this is of little importance, 

 as they commence growing at a season so early that 

 their roots have taken firm hold of the earth before 

 the drought has become so intense as to do them 

 any material injury. But the oak, late of vegetat- 

 ing under any circumstances, is peculiarly so after 

 being transplanted ; and the droughts of May, and 

 the beginning of June, if admitted to its roots, will 

 have them completely dried up before the plant has 

 had time to put forth a single leaf. 



There is no reason to seek the causes why oaks 

 should not thrive when treated thus, in any other 

 quarter than the treatment itself. When we consi- 

 der the antipathy they have to being transplanted, 

 and, at the same time, weigh the glaring defects of 

 the process just described, the want of success which 

 has attended it is thoroughly explained. It is a 

 process, in fact, which, with regard to oaks, is scarce- 

 ly less calculated to ensure destruction than if the 

 tops of the plants were put into the earth, and their 

 inverted roots exposed above ground, to be bleached 

 in the rains, and withered to pulverization in the 

 sunshine and the breeze. 



Transplanting (especially when conducted on such 



