258 
THE PLANTING SEASON. 
from a crowded and quiet place into one which is a good deal exposed, though 
the opposite practice is not merely perfectly safe, but extremely beneficial. 
On no kind of plant, however, is it requisite to bestow so much forethought 
and care in the selection for planting, as upon trees varying from twenty to fifty 
feet in height, and on very large specimens of shrubs. These are, in the first 
place, more valuable and important, and would be more missed if they died, or 
cause real disfigurement if they became sickly ; and, in the second place, their 
removal, to ensure success, is more difficult ; while, thirdly, they are, from their 
size, more liable to be harmed by those adverse atmospheric agents wiiich would 
hardly strike — or would act less forcibly — on smaller and more compact objects. 
Independently, then, of the advantage of noting that a specimen tree which 
has to be moved is growing in a light and not a very deep soil, and that there is, if 
possible, a hard substratum, so that the roots lie, as much as may be, over the 
surface instead of striking much downwards, it is proper to observe the position 
in which the tree is placed. If it be entirely detached, it will be most completely 
suitable ; whereas, the more its situation approaches to a confined or crowded one, 
or to one peculiarly sheltered, it becomes less and less fitted for transplanting, and 
the more so when it has to stand alone as a specimen, or to tower above others 
for breaking the sky outline of a plantation. This view likewise includes, with 
the chances of the tree's success after removal, its appearance in an ornamental 
light. 
We come, at length, to the last point which we proposed adverting to, and 
which is probably of more moment than all the rest. It relates to the numerous 
small matters involved in carrying out the actual operation of removal. Suitable 
weather, extreme attention to the roots in taking up the plants, care in keeping 
the roots from drying while they are out of the ground, the utmost minuteness 
of patience in spreading them out properly and covering them gradually and 
gently with well -pulverized earth, with efficient staking and watering when 
requisite, are some of the means which demand the most thorough and practised 
skill. Persons of the smallest observation know how far more rapidly a wound 
on any of their own limbs would heal, and the member become fit for fulfilling its 
usual functions healthily, when such a wound is bound up immediately, and kept 
from the action of the air. Yet this fact is forgotten in the analogous case of a 
plant with wounded roots, which is often left mercilessly exposed to all kinds of 
hurtful influences for a period which renders its recovery quite a subject for 
wonder, and which shows how much plants will endure and yet live. 
It is not easy to estimate correctly the extent of injury a plant undergoes by 
being treated as a lifeless stick ; nor to determine what is the large amount of 
advantage it gains from having a treatment accordant with its nature as a living 
thing. In the former case it continues to exist solely in consequence of a super- 
abundant energy in its vital power. In the latter, it scarcely feels the removal, 
and at once proceeds to draw sustenance from the new condition in which it is fixed. 
