368 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
Why Cultivated Trees and Plants need 
Winter Protection. 
To plants or trees growing where nature 
planted them, untrammeled by artificial culture, 
the Winter season, is not injurious but beneficial. 
The inner germs of the buds formed in Summer, 
are wrapped up in many a protecting fold. As 
the season advances, the tender new growth of 
branches is ripened and hardened against frost. 
Later, we see the leaves ripening, changing col¬ 
or, and dropping to the ground to cover the 
roots with a warm mantle. And when Winter, 
the night of vegetation comes on, those plants 
which have been allowed to have pretty much 
their own way, gently sink into repose, appa¬ 
rently enjoying the season of rest as much as 
tired man welcomes the slumbers of the night. 
But not so with cultivated plants and trees. 
Few of them are really at home. Look at the 
mixed character of our artificial vegetation. We 
are not satisfied with our native productions, but 
have canvassed the other hemisphere to gratify 
our tastes. It is doubles well that it is so. Go 
into our fruit gardens, a!M see the Duchesses, 
the Louises, and Beurres, and Doyennes, among 
our pears; the Monsieurs, the Reincs, the Vic¬ 
torias, the Drap D’Or, etc., among our Plums. 
Go into the ornamental grounds, and we find 
trees, shrubs and vines from Japan, China, Cen¬ 
tral Asia, Australia, Africa, Central Europe, and 
England. Some of these, indeed, are hardy, but 
not all. And if we insist upon transporting 
them from their native habitats into our colder 
climate, we must protect them. 
Again, look at our artificial and unnatural 
modes of cultivation. When nature plants trees, 
she sets them in assemblages, where one will 
shield the other, in Winter and Summer. Those 
exposed to the sun and storm, to the many and 
sudden changes of temperature, she clothes with 
branches and foliage from top to bottom. Her 
shrubs and vines are protected, more or less, in 
the same way, and her tender plants are shield¬ 
ed by overhanging trees, and by warm and dry 
blankets of leaves. 
We affect to be wiser than nature, and so we 
reverse her processes. Our trees we cruelly 
trim up like bean poles, and then set out singly 
in the open plain, exposed to all the vicissitudes 
of the year. And so with our shrubbery and 
plants. We studiously keep the ground neat and 
clean around their roots, and thus expose them 
to great alternations of heat and cold. And then 
instead of allowing them to grow in soil enrich¬ 
ed moderately by decaying vegetation, we crowd 
them into excessive luxuriance by stimulating 
manures. Such growth is unnatural, and it is 
nothing strange that trees and plants so treated 
need protection in Winter. 
But perhaps enough has been said to show 
that, taking our trees and plants as they are, 
they require some artificial protection in frosty 
weather. Of the ways of accomplishing this, 
we shall say something in another article. 
-«•-.- —- 
The Variegated Leaved Maple. 
This new variety of the maple (Acer negunclo 
vanegatar ) which was considerably praised last 
■ year in French journals, and which was referr¬ 
ed to, as “it is said,” in the American Agricultur¬ 
ist (Vol. XIX, p. 114), is strongly condemned by 
a French correspondent of the London Agricul¬ 
tural Gazette. He says, “ I saw not long since 
that identical ‘line plantation’ mentioned as 
standing in the Bois de Boulogne, and I give 
you my honor, 1 thought it was a lot of linen 
hanging out to bleach. Any thing more ugly 
can not be conceived ... It is inconceivable that 
it can be endurable under any circumstances 
whatever, unless in a ‘ collection ’ of variegated 
leaved plants, shown in pots, in some rural dis¬ 
play of childish curiosities.”—After such a show¬ 
ing we do not care to order any specimens at 
novelty prices. 
- ——— - 
How to Protect Trees and Plants in 
Winter. 
1. Fruit Trees .—All trees newly planted should 
have a little extra soil thrown over the roots, to 
protect them from severe frost, or rather, from 
sudden alternations of freezing and thawing. 
This slight elevation over the roots will serve 
to throw off surface water which would other¬ 
wise be likely to stand around the tree to its in¬ 
jury. Its weight, too, will help to anchor the 
tree, and prevent its being blown over by the 
winds. After trees have been planted one year, 
some coarse manure may be laid over the roots 
in the Fall, instead of the soil aforementioned, 
W'hicli will both protect the roots and feed them. 
If field mice abound in the neighborhood, a small 
hillock of dirt, say six or eight inches high, 
should be thrown up around every young tree, 
just before Winter sets in. Of course, this must 
be removed in the Spring. Some of the more 
tender pear trees will be benefited by winding 
a thin rope of straw around their trunks. Cher¬ 
ry trees are less liable to burst their bark, if a 
board, or two boards nailed together at the 
edges, are set up against the south side of the 
trees. We have sometimes used a section of 
bark from a forest tree in the same way. This 
bark may be loosely tied by strings to the south 
side of the trunk. 
2. Ornamental Trees .—Of the deciduous portion 
of these, the treatment should be essentially the 
same as with fruit trees. Those just planted 
should be staked on two sides, and tied up firm¬ 
ly with straw ropes, or broad leather bands, or, 
better still, with stout listing from the tailors’ 
shops. This will prevent their being blown 
over, and the loosening of their roots in the soil. 
A few half-hardy trees (in central New-York, 
like the Virgilia lutea, Kolreuteria, Salisburia,) 
some of the Magnolias, etc., when quite small, 
should have their branches gathered together, 
and bound about with coarse matting. This 
will be needful, at the longest, only for one or 
two Winters. 
Some of the hardy evergreens, when quite 
small and newly planted, are benefited by a 
slight protection for one year. Drive in two or 
three stakes around a tree, so that their tops will 
nearly meet above its apex, then bind a few 
evergreen branches loosely about them. This 
is not designed to keep the young tree warm, but 
to guard it in its new situation from too sudden 
changes of the weather. Half-hardy conifers 
will need a slight protection of this sort for sev¬ 
eral years; and experience only can decide 
whether it can ever be wholly dispensed with. 
3. Shrubs, Vines, and Plants .—Tender shrubs 
may be tied up with straw or coarse mats, or 
they may be bent to the ground and covered 
with litter. The last is the best way to protect 
tender roses, raspberries, grape-vines, delicate 
honeysuckles, English Ivy, and other ornament¬ 
al vines. All ordinary herbaceous plants should 
be protected by the debris of their own foliage, 
and with a little soil or coarse manure from the 
horse stable. Whatever material is used, it is 
desirable that it be light and porous. And the 
covering need not be as thick and heavy as is 
often used. What is wanted is chiefly some¬ 
thing to keep the plant in a uniform temperature. 
How to Transplant Large Trees. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
In the October number of the Agriculturist you 
say plant small trees. The writer of this is one 
of your subscribers of the “ Young America ” 
order, who can t wait for a tree to grow for 
shade in the lawn. Five or six years since I 
built me a cottage, and being in a hurry for shade 
trees, I proceeded in the following way: In the 
Fall, before the ground was frozen, the places 
for planting were selected, and the surface was 
covered with litter, to prevent the ground freez¬ 
ing. I then went to the forest and chose eight 
or ten white pine and hemlock trees about twen¬ 
ty five feet high, cleared away the leaves and 
earth down to near the roots, and dug a trench 
around each tree about a foot deep, from three 
and a half to four feet from the trunk. I threw 
litter in the bottom of each trench, and left them 
until the frost had entered the ground about 
eight inches. They were then ready to remove. 
I used a pulley to draw them over with, and 
most of the roots were held fast in the cake of 
frozen earth. They all lived and are thriving, 
and I have not only enjoyed their shade, but 
the disappointment of my neighbors, who 
prophesied that none of them would live. 
E. F. N. 
Transplanting Laurel—Rhododendron 
Maximum. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
I noticed in the November American Agricul¬ 
turist, for this year, page 324, some directions you 
gave a lady correspondent, concerning the prop¬ 
er mode of lifting and subsequent culture of the 
“Laurel” (Kalmia). I presume you allude to 
the small “ Sheep Laurel,” as the mountaineers 
call that plant. As to the “ Rhododendron Max¬ 
imum ” which is also erroneously called “ The 
Big Laurel ” by most persons, I take pleasure in 
stating here, that three years ago I lifted about 
one dozen of that species of plant, then grow¬ 
ing on the banks of the “Tygart Valley River,” 
immediately opposite the town of Grafton, 
North-western Virginia, at noon on the 21st of 
July (and a very hot day it was too), with a ball 
of their native soil (leaf mold) attached to them. 
They all are alive to this day, and have yielded 
me each season since, beautiful blueisli white 
flowers. About two years ago I caused to be 
lifted, in the same way (earth and all) several 
more plants of the Rhododendron Maximum, at the 
same place, of sizes from 2 to 6 feet high, with 
well formed and large heads, and these all yield¬ 
ed me this past Summer, numerous large and 
beautiful trusses of flowers; one plant among 
them—had beautiful white flowers. I judge from 
this, that if I, only an inexperienced amateur, 
have been so successful in growing these plants, 
both large and small, that all the outcry about 
the difficulty of growing them after their being 
transplanted, is without just cause—I certainly 
think, however, that leaf mold or peat is their 
natural food, for I observed, when they were 
lifted, that they would not fix their roots in the 
subsoil, but spread laterally along with the leaf 
mold. My Rhododendron plants are now well 
