December 20. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1843 before their turn came, and when we did begin 
we bad no idea bow deep they were buried, but wo 
soon came to brickbats, and at last reached down to 
the roots, and now one could almost see what passed 
between the mind of the person, or persons, who 
conducted the operation nearly 20 years since. He 
was evidently an Hi olian planter, and, like all planters 
who are disciples otVEolus, he believed if he could so 
arrange as to prepare means for a current of wind to 
reach the roots all should go on prosperously enough ; 
therefore, his first preparation was to place a large cone 
of brickbats and the like all over the roots, and to carry 
a continuation of this up to very near the surface, 
resting the larger pieces against the body of the tree, 
and then covering the whole with such common soil 
as happened to be at hand. Now, there can be little 
doubt but a large portion of the rains which fell on 
these trees passed down to the roots, and the porous 
materials were sufficient to drain the surrounding 
soil for a considerable distance all round, and by 
that means collected a large supply of water for the 
roots also; but there was no danger about any of 
this water getting stagnant about the roots, owing 
to the subsoil and situation. Therefore, we may 
reasonably conclude that these trees did not want 
for air or water in abundance, and yet tliey stood 
still for nearly 20 years; but, if they had been reared 
on the sjxot, and were in health at the time of alter 
ing the ground, and all these pains had been taken 
to ensure their safety, there is little doubt but the 
fact would afterwards be pointed to as of immense 
service; in fact, that this saved the lives of those 
beautiful trees; and, if you or I had a similar case 
in hand this winter, some such plan would probably 
be recommended to us as a safe experiment; but, in 
truth, it is very much worse than useless. I once 
knew a fine tree of the common hawthorn that had 
to be buried nine feet, and a walnut tree close by it, 
but a little higher up on a bank, that was covered 
up the stem seven feet, owing to alterations made in 
the slope of the ground; both these trees look as 
well as if nothing had been done to them, but then 
they were established when the ground was altered. 
1 also recollect having had a stone quarry opened in 
a plantation of mixed trees, and there was a depth 
of four feet of loose gravel soil to be removed before 
wo got down to the stone. This was wheeled out, 
and made into a high circular bank among the 
trees, and after six years the stone quarry was filled 
up with this bank of earth. During those six years, 
every one of the trees thus buried made roots into 
the fresh earth from their naked boles—not all the 
way up from the original surface, but in a ring just 
a little below the surface of the new earth; and some 
of the trees were sensibly thicker above this tier of 
roots than lower down; and there were more than a 
dozen of larch trees in this way—the very last tree 
in the country one could believe would root at all 
from its naked trunk. 
The lesson which these facts teach us is obvious. 
If trees are, or must be, covered up to a certain 
depth, owing to buildings, or alterations to be done 
in their neighbourhood, it is much the safest way to 
pile up the soil against the trees at once; for, if the 
depth will idtimately kill them, no mode of trying to 
prevent it by brickwork will succeed. The two holly 
trees which we relieved in 1843 have since made a 
very promising growth. We opened a hole all round 
eacli of them down to the very l-oots, and about a 
yard from the trunk, so that the tree stood in the 
centre of a six feet opening; a large quantity of leaf 
mould and sand, in equal proportions, was worked 
153 
in among the roots, and up to a foot above them, 
and the rest was filled in with good mould and then 
turfed over. This winter we shall open a trench 
two feet wide just outside this ring of good earth, 
and probably the roots will meet us half way down, 
at any rate we shall dig deeply enough to reach 
them, but no deeper, unless they meet us very near 
the surface: this outer trench will be filled up with 
good soil, both to feed the tree and to encourage the 
roots to spread laterally and near to the surface. 
Now, I can hardly think it possible for any of our 
readers to have a tree or bush in their gardens in a 
more hopeless case than those holly trees were in fox- 
many years; but they are now cured more surely 
than Mr. Holloway ever cured a bad leg; and I be¬ 
lieve nine-tenths of the stunted plants one sees in 
garden grounds may be brought round in the same 
way. The worst cases I ever met with were ti-ees 
which were originally turned out, or planted, from 
small pots without spreading out the roots. When 
that is not done, the large l'oots near the surface 
still keep the coiled position they necessarily as¬ 
sumed in the pot, and act on the balance of the tree 
like a corkscrew, upheaving it out of the ground as 
they increase in size, till, by-and by, it must either 
be propped up, or laid heels upwards some windy 
night. The only way to get over a case of this sort 
is to bare down to the coiled parts of the roots, and 
with a mallet and a pruning chisel cut through 
one or more of the coils near the collar of the root, 
and then filling in a sandy compost to facilitate the 
formation of new x-oots from the cut parts, and after¬ 
wards to lay in more good soil not far from the sur¬ 
face, to enable the new roots to extend rapidly, and 
take a firm hold of tlxe ground; of course, all the 
coiled roots must not be cut at one time, for fear of 
killing the tree. The best way is to do the work 
one-third at a time, so that in three or four years 
the whole are released. There are few gardens of any 
extent in the country, that have been planted from 
20 to 30 years back, which cannot furnish sad spe¬ 
cimens of the effects of turning little plants out of 
small pots without shaking the soil away, and train¬ 
ing out the roots in straight lines, as they ought to 
be. Another bad symptom is, when you see a 
fine, full-grown evergreen beginning to lose the 
leaves at the top. The cause of this is very easy 
to find out; the extreme roots are in the same 
pi-edicament under the soil as the top branches 
are above; they thus sympathise with each other, 
just as a headache proceeds fYonx a disordered 
stomach in our own experience: and the best 
cure is to work down to the roots, and if some 
are found to pass into a bad subsoil work them out, 
or, if that is difficult, cut them and place some good 
compost against them, working it out sideways to 
entice theixx, or new roots from them, nearer the sur¬ 
face. The next division is that were you see plants 
—that is, ornamental trees, shrubs, climbers, &c.— 
looking tolerably well as a whole, but still not quite 
xxp to your mind. It will not do, now-a-days, to have 
these things passable ; better grow oxxly half the 
quantity, axxd attend to them properly. In large gar¬ 
dens a heap of compost is generally formed, from 
various refuse, pui-posely for assisting plants the mo¬ 
ment they show any signs of getting languid, and 
this work is entrusted to the most intelligent of the 
garden men, who is allowed some more hands to 
assist him, and next summer, when beds and pot 
plants are being watered, he sees that his patients 
are not neglected. Where such operations arc carried 
on systematically—and without a system we may 
