THE planter's GUIDE. 



309 



tations. In respect to the spreading Oak, after a bad 

 season, it is not easy to distinguish it from the upright, 

 bj the most obvious of its peculiarities, the retention of 

 the leaf. A summer, for example, like that of 1823, 

 which was singularly cold and wet, produced a striking 

 effect on the whole vegetive tribe ; and it could hardly 

 be expected in any Oak (as the tree makes its shoots twice 

 in the season) that the wood should be well ripened, nor, 

 by consequence, the leaves perfect. In the same way, 

 deep trenching round the tree, severe cutting of the roots, 

 and still more the operation of removal itself, are sure to 

 occasion like effects. 



For this reason it is important, in selecting the plants 

 proper for removal, to do it after a season that has been 

 tolerably good, and when they have not been deteriorated 

 by external accident. In this case, the characteristic of 

 retaining the foliage will always appear prominent. I 

 have in preparation at present, in open plantations, a 

 number of aboriginal Oaks, which, after the fall of 1824 

 (the succeeding year,) could not at once be recognised as 

 such, owing to a deficiency of leaves, although they carried 

 them in abundance during the whole season, both before 

 and after. In like manner, it is to be remarked, that few 

 spreading Oaks will recover so perfect a circulation of 

 their sap, as to enable them to retain the leaf throughout 

 the season, until about the third year after removal. 



I have dwelt longer on the Oak than perhaps might 

 seem necessary, on account of the unequalled value and 

 beauty of the tree, and its peculiar adaptation to trans- 

 planting, whether as grove or copse-wood, provided the 

 proper method be adopted. Besides the main object of 

 obviating the difficulty of the process, the interest and 

 general importance of the collateral details will, I am 

 persuaded, recommend them to the notice of the reader. 



