THE PLAJ^TER's GUIDE. 



301 



Horse-cliestniit, can be transplanted with perfect safety. 

 From the experiments, however, detailed above, I am 

 convinced that the Oak is not adapted by nature to the 

 change at so early a season ; which seems to have the 

 effect of chilling the roots and fibres, and rendering them 

 unfit by the spring to perform their functions, and give 

 proper nourishment to the plant. 



I should therefore advise, that Oaks never be trans- 

 planted till the end of March, or beginning of April ; and 

 in some late seasons, the work may with entire safety be 

 continued till the second week of May. He, therefore, 

 who is immindfol of this salutary precept, will oftentimes 

 fail with the Oak, when, other things being equal, he might 

 pretty certainly succeed. Mr Pontey, whose skill and 

 experience as a planter no one will call in question, 

 assures us, that he has known whole plantations of young 

 Oaks give way in particular seasons from this cause ; and 

 the late Lord Meadowbank, whose excellent little tract, 

 entitled " Instructions to Foresters,'' is less known than it 

 ought to be, fully concurs in the opinions above expressed. 



It is now about twelve years since the facts above 

 stated were pressed upon my attention, from an anxious 

 desire to bring the monarch of the wood within the sphere 

 of the transplanting art. Since that period, I have taken 

 every opportunity of observing the properties of the 

 spreading Oak, together with its two varieties above 

 described ; and I am enabled to attest not only its value 

 as a subject for transplantation, but its general importance 

 for the improvement of our woods, especially those in the 

 higher latitudes. The richer soils and the more sheltered 

 situations should, of course, be reserved for the upright 

 Oak, whether as an object of beauty or utility. But I 

 am convinced that, in a national view, the two species 

 should be carefully discriminated and separately cultivated, 



