352 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[Sef 
TEilBER 0. 
third less cost than in July or August—for these are 
certainly the best two months in the year to remove 
evergreens in our climate,—but what is the best time for 
making the largest number of new roots in the shortest 
time; and when that is ascertained, as it undoubtedly is 
among the present race of gardeners, the cheapest mode 
oi planting them will, like everything else, be that which 
| is the cheapest in the long-run. More money, or, what 
is the same tiling, more care and more water will be 
I necessary to insure summer planting than would be re¬ 
quired in November; but then look at the results in 
both periods, not one of a hundred of summer planted 
evergreens need lose a leaf, or be the least crippled in 
any vvay by the operation; but in November it is not so, 
and in the nature of things it is not jiossible that it 
should be so, for then success depends as much on the 
kind ot winter which follows as on the skilfulness with 
which the planting is performed. It is true, that the 
effects of late autumn planting, or the effects of a hard 
winter on the plants, are not seen much till next April 
or May; and that a hundredreasons, and not one of them 
the true one, can then be assigned for the failure : high 
winds, bad land, water lodgement, late spring, and 
what not, can be brought forward, had done it all; 
whereas they had only helped to finish that which was 
begun at the wrong end of the story. 
io show the subject under another view, let us give 
another turn to it. One of the best props for holding 
up the credit due to skilful planting is, the age of the 
tree itself. I have heard it applied over and over again 
this very season; and even thirty years were put down 
as something to boast of in the case of our own hedge 
plants: one visitor remarked, that he had seen box- 
trees as large as ours at half their age; inferring at the 
same time, that age cast more difficulty in the way of 
removing trees than size did,—that he had, himself, 
some box-trees full ten feet high, and from thirty to 
forty ieet round, but they were quite young conrpared 
to ours; and, ot course, could be moved at any time 
next season with half the risk that we incurred; and he 
did intend to transplant some of them. Now, I could 
not conscientiously allow this gentleman to depart thus 
confirmed in an erroneous idea, by what he had seen of 
our planting, neither could I drop the subject without 
showing this side of it; indeed, at the time 1 deter¬ 
mined, if ever I told or wrote the history of this little 
job, that I would endeavour to put the saddle on the 
light horse, and disabuse the minds of young planters 
on this point. 
Who ever heard of the removal of a very large tree, 
evergreen, or otherwise, who did not at the same time 
hear of how many toll-hars had to be broken through- 
how many corners of streets, or how many houses or 
windows, had been damaged by the vegetable wonder; 
and all this unavoidable damage is made to tell in 
favour ot the great wonder of removing very old trees? 
\Y hereas the age and size ol a tree to be transplanted, 
m nine cases out of ten, ought to be set down in favour 
ot the planter, not against him, as at present. It is three 
to one more difficult to transplant a vigorous, healthy, 
young full-grown tree than the same tree would be a 
hundred years lienee ; and the reason is this—“ vigor¬ 
ous and healthy” bespeak good soil and situation, cir¬ 
cumstances under which trees make fast progress in a 
comparatively short sjiaco of time; and when they are 
removed from such favourable conditions it is seldom 
m the power of the planter to find a better, or even as 
good, a soil lor them ; besides, every fibre or part, from 
the ends ol the roots to the topmost branch, is distended 
to the full in a “ healthy vigorous ” tree; and all the 
planters in the world could not remove a tree in this 
condition without impairing the system, more or less— 
a root not bigger than the little finger would tell against 
such tree, if cut off injudiciously ; and all this is so well 
S understood by nurserymen, and by the planters of young 
' stock, that the nurseryman advertises, as a recommenda¬ 
tion, that such and such trees are, or were, growing on 
such poor soil that there can be no fear about their doing 
well anywhere, after they are removed; and the planter 
is satisfied that all this is right. Ho is also aware, that 
when he plants from a new nursery with deep rich soil 
' the chances are against him, because the young plants, 
! like the healthy vigorous full-grown tree, are distended 
to the full, and in that condition are more suscejffible of 
j injury than if they were in a slow stunted growth, when 
a change to a fresh soil could not fail to be of much 
I benefit to them. All this about young nursery stock is 
[ so well understood, that we call it a principle; and the 
very next day we violate this principle by implication, 
I when we come to treat of transplanting large trees. We 
give great credit to a planter who has been successful 
j in removing a tree a hundred or two hundred years old, 
which may have been living for the half of it's time on 
the scantiest pasture ; its own roots, or those of neigh¬ 
bouring trees, having long since exhausted the soil 
around it, so that its annual growth for years past coidd 
j only be counted by inches—in short, has arrived at that 
1 condition most favourable for the credit of the planter; 
because if the size or bulk of this tree will allow of its 
being removed at all, it can hardly be placed under 
more unfavourable conditions than it has been in for 
years, and the change to better soil, if ordinary care is 
taken with the roots, is sure to be in its favour rather 
than otherwise. In the case of our box-trees, therefore, 
their age was much in their favour; for the last twenty 
years they were struggling on under the disadvantages 
incident to old trees; and instead of suffering from 
being removed, they were rather very much the gain¬ 
ers—removed in the height of the growing season into 
a fresh bed of soil, they struck fresh roots into it imme¬ 
diately. D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Lantana. —This family of plants is chiefly to be found 
in South America and the West India Islands. It be¬ 
longs, like the Clerodendron, to which I lately alluded, 
to the natural group of verbenas, though at a first 
glance the different varieties and species present little 
resemblance to that beautiful family. The flowers are 
produced very abundantly all over the shrubby plant, 
the pretty compact corymbs continuing to start in pairs, 
from opposite sides of the stem, as long almost as a 
suitable temperature is maintained, and showing off to 
the best advantage owing to their longish but stiff, firm, 
footstalks. Some of these corymbs of flowers are so fiat, 
as to resemble in appearance the generality of our com¬ 
mon bedding-out verbenas; other species again have 
their heads of flowers so rounded as to resemble in j'orm 
a guelder rose in miniature. 
l'Tom the localities whence they have been introduced, 
it has been usual to treat the most of them as denizens 
ot our plant stoves; and this is necessary if the charac¬ 
ter given to them as stove evergreens is to bo main¬ 
tained. I have, however, long used them for decorating 
the greenhouse, by treating them as deciduous plants, 
giving them their season of rest in winter just as wo do 
in the case of a vine or a fuchsia. Several kinds, such 
as Lantana mutabilis, Crocea sttperba, Aculeata, &o., will 
flourish in the common soil of the flower-garden during 
summer, if the place be well sheltered. In high and ex¬ 
posed situations the wind and the rains are too much for 
tbe beauty of the flowers. The best of all the species 
tor this purpose is the beautiful crimson, Sellvuii, a 
dwarf plant with small leaves but large corymbs of 
