LIFTING LARGE TREES. 
25 
drives formed, and in all cases plantations are required ; and to 
avoid a meagre and poor appearance for some years it frequently 
becomes necessary to obtain both trees and shrubs of as large a 
size as can be safely transplanted, and very often such trees may 
be found on the same estate in positions where they are really 
deteriorating, and whence they would be better in every way for 
transference to more open quarters. But the lifting and trans- 
planting large trees is so commonly regarded as such a serious, 
expensive, and risky work that the owners of estates too frequently 
let their plantations become practically weakened rather than 
resort to a measure that appears fraught with the danger of 
losing some valued old specimens. Perhaps the extreme course 
is adopted of cutting away trees that are crowding the finer 
specimens, but in many cases this is a costly and wasteful 
method which should only be entertained when other modes are 
impracticable or unadvisable. 
It would be difficult to understand why there should be so 
much reluctance to undertake the removal of large trees were 
it not for the fact that in the hands of inexperienced persons such 
work has proved to be very expensive, and attended by a large 
proportion of failures which always become more widely known 
and are longer remembered than the better results attainable 
with due care. Certainly it is possible now to point out many 
estates where, under efficient superintendence, enormous im- 
provements have been effected by the transplanting of large trees 
— cases amply sufficient to show what is really required for 
success, and to induce gentlemen to venture upon an experiment 
that should not be attended with more risk and loss than many 
other operations in gardening and estate work. When it is 
considered how much may be gained by such work, and what 
pleasure is reaped from watching the progress of handsome trees 
in suitable positions, as compared with the painful impression 
caused by observing the crippled giants of old crowded planta- 
tions, it is surprising that still more is not done in this way. I 
have recently had occasion to inspect one of the finest old parks 
in South Wales, where trees fifty to 100 years old are in many 
places crowded to such an extent that the struggle for existence 
has resulted in disfigured or disproportioned specimens where 
otherwise magnificent examples of arboreal beauty might have 
been ensured. The present proprietor is fully conscious of the 
