214 



THE planter's GUIDE. 



root round the nucleus are little injured or cramped up, 

 notwithstanding the retaining bank. 



While this business is going forward, the director accu- 

 rately examines the position of the tree, first on the one 

 side and then on the other, from the two offsets, (which is 

 tantamount to his making the entire circuit of the tree,) 

 and takes care that it be perfectly upright ; making a due 

 allowance for any bends or natural sweeps in the outline 

 of the stem or top. For accomplishing this, the trans- 

 verse ropes, with five or six stout hands put to them, will 

 stiU be able to command the tree ; and it is necessary that 

 its adjustment be at this time effected, in order to obviate 

 the possibility of injuring the roots by dragging, and con- 

 sequently displacing them at a later period. By the 

 above method of giving stability to the tree, before any 

 cover whatever is laid upon the roots, (which I believe is 

 new, and peculiar to my practice,) the discerning reader 

 will see that a complete safeguard against wind is pro- 

 vided, without injury to the growth of the plant. This is 

 truly the planting of the tree : all else belongs to the 

 distribution, and the covering of the roots. 



The distribution, though secondary in point of con- 

 sequence to the securing of them, is a process involving 

 much nicety and difficulty, and it is the business of the 

 director, in the next place, to attend to its execution. The 

 roots having been indiscriminately bundled up in the 

 transportation, and merely untied during the fixing of the 

 tree, are now, as may be imagined, in a state of great 

 disorder, which the process of bolstering up rather tends 

 to aggravate than improve. Accordingly, all the work- 

 men are employed to disentangle them, and to stretch 

 them out in the most regular manner from the centre. 

 The tree, as already supposed, being a Beech of more than 



