THE planter's GUIDE. 



47 



iu Britain, it may probably be said that it has advanced 

 little within a century, whether in respect of skill or 

 science. Of late years, however, some successful examples 

 have been given of what may be called horticultural 

 transplantation, that is, the removal of large shrubs and 

 trees of an ornamental or exotic species. At the Royal 

 Gardens of Kew, during the reign of his late Majesty, 

 this was done on a considerable scale, and with extra- 

 ordinary success ; but I have not been able to obtain any 

 detail of the process. 



About three years since, Dr Robert Graham, Professor 

 of Botany in the University of Edinburgh, on changing 

 the site of the Botanical Garden at that place, contrived 

 to remove a vast number of plants of great rarity and 

 value, and which, had they been lost, many years of the 

 most diligent culture in the ordinary manner would not 

 have replaced. Previously to the taking up, he followed 

 the ingenious method of Lord Fitzharding, in cutting 

 round the plants, which, properly speaking, should all 

 have stood for two or three years after, in order to gain 

 an accession to their roots ; but some local arrangements 

 having deprived them of that advantage, a great part 

 were suffered to stand only for a single season. Such, 

 notwithstanding, was the extraordinary care bestowed 

 upon them by the ingenious professor, and the skill and 

 diligence of his gardener Mr M'Nab, that the removals 

 were executed with a safety which could scarcely have 

 been anticipated. In order to give still greater variety 

 and effect to the new garden, forest trees also of various 

 kinds, and considerable dimensions — some of them from 

 thirty to forty feet high — were at the same time trans- 

 ferred from the old ground to the new. 



The method adopted was to raise as great a mass or 

 ball of earth as possible with the plants, and that was 



