178 



THE planter's GUIDE. 



is no easy matter, even in the freest soils, so to disen- 

 gage the fibrous and capillary roots of trees, as not to 

 lacerate or disbark a considerable number of them, and 

 yet perform the work with any tolerable despatch. But 

 it is the process of all others which will the least bear to 

 be hurried. There are some departments of rural labour 

 in which despatch and economy are nearly allied, and 

 almost conyertible terms, and where every one, of course, 

 will study to promote the former as far as lies in his 

 power. But in the one in question, the greatest delibera- 

 tion, or at least the greatest caution, is the truest saving 

 that can be made. For here the well-known adage, 

 Festina lente, is the golden rule which should regulate 

 the process. It is well known to the vegetable anatomist, 

 who can discern with his microscope the flattened extre- 

 mities of the capillary rootlets, {Capillamenta,) how well 

 fitted they are to perform the office of absorption, and 

 that it is to those eficctive organs chiefly that plants are 

 indebted for the introsusception of their food. Hence, 

 when disbarked or lacerated, or, what is worse, cut away, 

 the severe and often inefi'ectual eff*orts made by planters to 

 restore or replace them. The planter cannot too earnestly 

 reflect, that the greater roots do little more than serve as 

 canals or channels to transmit the sap to the trunk, 

 where it ascends by the tubes of the wood to the branches, 

 and ultimately to the leaves ; on which account it is 

 evident, that the failure and decay of the top (the great 

 opprobrium of transplanters) is primarily to be ascribed 

 to the entire want of skill in the preservation of these 

 fibrous roots, on which the tree mainly depends for a 

 suitable supply of sap during the first season. He, 

 therefore, who can most successfully vanquish this diffi- 

 culty is the greatest master of his art. 



But to return to the business of the field. As soon as 



