TRANSPLA.NTING AND PLANTING. 



317 



When this mode of transplanting large trees with the branches on is adopted 

 in a dry soil, the success will be very different, even though the ground 

 should be mulched round the transplanted trees, and the stem and main 

 branches closely wrapped round with straw ropes to lessen evaporation. 

 The most suitable trees for planting out with no other preparation than 

 thinning or pruning the branches, are those whose roots and heads have been 

 properly thinned and pruned by cultivation in a nursery. Such trees may 

 be planted out at greater ages and sizes than trees taken from plantations of 

 a few years' growth, and will both strike fresh roots more certainly and grow 

 faster ; but these last may be taken up, when from ten to twenty or twenty- 

 five feet high, and planted out with full success, provided the two following 

 particulars are observed : first, to get up as much root as possible ; next, to 

 reduce the branches dowTi to due proportion with the root which has been 

 got up. A great part of the root is unavoidably lost in the taking up of the 

 tree, and it is the most efficient part, being the extreme fibres. The root 

 has thus lost its natural proportion to the head, and is now insufficient to 

 supply it with moisture. Trees planted out in this state often, after having 

 put forth their leaves, die suddenly, and others which continue to live will 

 fall into a languid state and die off" gradually, or recover their vigour very 

 slowly. (Sii- Chas. Monk in Hort. Trans, and Gard. Mag. vol. v. p. 148.) 



712. The removal of large trees and shi-uhs without previous preparation 

 has been carried to a greater extent at Arlington Court, in Devonshire, than 

 it has been anywhere else that we have heard of ; and a detailed account of 

 the manner in which the operation is performed by Mr. Nash, the gardener, 

 will be found in the Gardener s Magazine for 1838, p. 507. The trenches 

 at Arlington are dug round the tree at ten or twelve feet from the stem, or 

 farther if necessary, so as to take up as far as practicable the w^hole of the 

 roots and fibres ; and none of these or of the branches are cut off, excepting 

 such as have been injured by the operation of moving. Isolating the roots 

 of a large tree in its ball of earth, and rendering this ball portable by soaking 

 it with water during frost, and moving it when it is a frozen mass, is some- 

 times resorted to with good effect ; and encasing small balls with plaster 

 of Paris, where that substance is abundant, has been occasionally practised 

 by amateurs. 



713. Transplanting by " heading in" that is, cutting in the branches. — 

 This is the general practice throughout the Continent ; for there, such is the 

 heat and dryness of the air in early spring and summer, that the roots of 

 newly-transplanted trees are far from being able to support the perspiration 

 which takes place from the leaves. The practice is of the most remote 

 antiquity, and Professors De Candolle and Thouin both allude to it, as in 

 general use, and attended with success ; though they both allege that it is 

 carried too far when the main stems of pyramidal trees, such as pines and 

 firs, are shortened ; the consequence of which is a branching head instead of 

 a conical one, as may be seen in those remarkable rows of spruce-firs which 

 line some of the avenues at Meudon. The mode of treating headed -in 

 trees practised in Belgium is described in an early volume of the Gar- 

 deners Magazine, and again in that work for 1841. The trees, whether 

 oak, ash, elm, poplar, or other leafy kinds, are taken from the nursery 

 when they are fifteen feet or more in height, and about the thickness 

 of a man's arm ; the lateral branches are all cut off" close to the stem, to the 

 height of six or seven feet from the collar ; the top is also cut off" in a slant- 



