102 



THE planter's GUIDE. 



full and extensiye ramification on the stormy side: for 

 wherever the action of the air is the greatest, there the 

 greatest evolution of buds, as above stated, and the 

 thickest growth of spray, will take place ; but those 

 growths, for the reasons already assigned, are shorter and 

 feebler in proportion as they are more numerous. In so 

 far, then, the art of transplanting on fixed principles may 

 be said to substitute beauty for deformity, and fairly to 

 cure one of the most prominent defects which, in a pictu- 

 resque view, park trees in loose dispositions are apt to 

 display, particularly on our western coasts. Probably I 

 am the first planter who ever thought of turning these 

 properties of woody plants to any practical or useful 

 purpose.'" 



In respect to the health and strength of the trees, I 

 have never found it to injure them, or in any wise to 

 impede their growth. As soon as the warmer or more 

 sheltered side becomes the colder or more exposed, accor- 

 ding to the law of nature, the respective parts soon accom- 

 modate themselves to the circumstances in which they are 

 placed. The free extension of branches, which in the 

 former position had been acquired by the sheltered side, 

 loses none of its pre-eminence, while the contracted 

 growths on the opposite side as freely expand. The 

 health and progress of the tree sustain no check or detri- 

 ment, while its equal balance and symmetry are both 

 singularly improved. On this subject I may speak with 

 some confidence, after long experience in the removal of 

 wood of all sorts, and in a situation decidedly exposed; 

 because the exposure of nearly the one half of the park 

 here is considerable, and the climate on the whole is none 

 of the most propitious. The practice, therefore, may be 



% 



* Note VII. 



