THE planter's GUIDE. 



25 



have been very conversant with tlie subject of wood, from 

 the wonder which he expresses at the natural appearance 

 of fruit in the first season ; as any gardener could have 

 predicted the probability of the phenomenon during the 

 first year, together with the certainty of its ceasing dm-ing 

 the second. 



Evelyn, although with no great accuracy, narrates the 

 same story of Count Maurice, and adds that instances of 

 the practice, little less successful, had occurred in Europe. 

 He states that, about the middle of the same century, M. 

 de Fiat, a Mareschal of France, removed huge Oaks in this 

 way at the Chateau de Fiat.'"* The Elector Palatine, about 

 the same time, also transplanted a number of great Lime- 

 trees, from one of his forests near Heidelberg, to the slope 

 of a hill in view of the palace. Midsummer, it seems, was 

 the singular time selected for the work ; and De Son, a 

 Frenchman, and " an admirable mechanician," as Evelyn 

 records it, managed the execution. The soil of the hill 

 (according to De Son's account given to Evelyn himself) 

 consisted of " a dry, reddish, barren earth," which pro- 

 bably with us might have been esteemed good turnip soil. 

 Here, he says, they made great pits for the reception of the 

 trees. They then cut off their heads ; and having filled 

 the pits with a composition of cow-dung diluted with 

 water, and worked to the consistency of the finest puddle 

 or pap, they immersed the roots in it, and carefully re- 

 placed the turf upon the surface as before. These Limes, 

 as Evelyn adds, " prospered rarely well," exposed as they 

 were, during the whole process, to the scorching rays of the 

 sun ; and this he justly considers as "a singular example 

 of removing so great trees at such a season;"! or, in 

 other words, that it is not easy to kill the Lime, in what- 

 ever way you treat it. 



* Silva, vol. i. p. 102. t Silva, vol. i. pp. 102, 205. 



