THE planter's guide. 



297 



About tins new attempt I felt not very sanguine. All 

 the circumstances attending it seemed unpropitious. The 

 trees themselves were too tall for their girth, and their 

 roots far inferior to those of others which had died on the 

 former occasion almost universally. To mj great satis- 

 faction, however, it was crowned with success. After 

 this, another trial was made with two trees quite upright 

 in their form, with white and silvery bark, but perfectly 

 retentive of their leaves to the same late period ; and the 

 result was not less satisfactory than in the foregoing 

 example. In a word, it now appeared clear that the 

 remarkable property of heeping the leaf during the winter, 

 and especially during the whole of the following spring, 

 or that of dropping it in November or December, was 

 the true criterion for the selection of the best subjects for 

 this operation. 



Instead of the perpetual miscarriage which I formerly 

 experienced, I had now discovered the road to success. 

 The later, likewise, that I planted the trees, even down 

 to the second week of May, the result appeared to 

 be the more encouraging and satisfactory. In more 

 than a hundred Oaks, which I have since removed, I 

 scarcely think that more than three have died ; a loss 

 almost incredibly small, and somewhat less than the 

 average amount of deaths in the most successful removals. 

 The truth is, that were I to name one tree more than 

 another that I could now undertake to transplant with 

 success, (the Lime, Horse-chestnut, and perhaps the Elm, 

 excepted,) it would be the aboriginal oak, black and 

 white. Under that name, therefore, I beg leave to 

 introduce both kinds to the notice of the reader, as 

 varieties of the sessile-fruited or spreading Oak. They 

 are by far the most hardy of the Oak family. The white 

 or upright sort possesses all the advantages which superior 



