THE planter's GUIDE. 



249 



witli the spade, and rammed into the opening, firmly 

 treading them in mth the foot, or seairing them if needful 

 with the beater. If this be done in April, before the sap 

 flows abundantly, no damage will be suffered by the bark, 

 and little by the roots. As the position of the tree is 

 reversed in the planting, and the longest branches, and 

 consequently the longest roots, are turned to the stormy 

 quarter, you will probably have no further trouble with it : 

 although a second revision of its position is always advis- 

 able in the spring of the following year. 



Upon the whole, this is a work which, according to the 

 preservative system, is so seldom necessary that the 

 mention of it in this place might seem superfluous ; but 

 in a body of instructions intended for general use, it is 

 advisable to guard against every contingency. In respect 

 to the propping or supporting of trees with wood or 

 ropes or other materials, which, with many planters forms 

 a principal and important branch of their afterwork, it is 

 wholly unknown at this place. Indeed, whoever con- 

 siders the method of securing the roots above delineated, 

 will perceive that such adventitious and imsightly con- 

 trivances are altogether superseded by that method. 

 During the course of thirty years, as already mentioned, 

 we have never had a tree blown down, and rarely one 

 displaced from its original position ; and it is probably to 

 the undisturhecl state of the roots owing to that circum- 

 stance, dming the two first years after removal, that om^ 

 success may in a great measure be attributed. 



I will now proceed, in the second place, to speak of 

 close woods and plantations. The afterwork applicable 

 to these will not require a long discussion. Much of the 

 afterwork that is proper for single trees, equally applies 

 to enclosed masses of wood : besides, the same minuteness 



