THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 13, 1857. 
be deemed too extended, and by others they are considered 
too limited. The best and most suitable plants have been 
indicated, and others may be tried by those who love variety 
and novelty. R. Fish. 
SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN TRANSPLANTING 
LARGE TREES AND SHRUBS. 
Of late years the removal and replanting of large 
trees and shrubs have attracted much attention, and as 
in some cases they have succeeded, those who had the 
management in those places are loud in their asser¬ 
tions that the same could be done everywhere, and 
allege a want of skill and attention on the part of those 
who have not been so fortunate with their removals. 
This requiring some explanation I make no apology for 
devoting a few lines to so important a subject, and for 
stating a few of the leading points. 
In the first place it is proper to call the reader’s atten¬ 
tion to the fact that the late Sir Henry Stuart effected 
the removal of tolerably large trees about fifty years ago 
by means of a machine, the lifting part of which acted 
in the same way as the usual two-wheeled timber car¬ 
riages of the present day lift their load from the ground, 
that is, the pole is used as a lever; and in his work 
published about that time he was very sanguine of 
the success which might attend even the universal 
adoption of this mode of planting large trees in extensive 
plantations for profit. Whether this could be carried 
out or not is not worth while inquiring; but certainly 
his success as a planter has not been excelled by that 
of any one since; but since his time other machines 
have been contrived, and larger trees probably have 
been removed; and in some instances we are told that 
deciduous trees have been removed in summer without 
the loss of a leaf, and some other marvellous feats are told 
of being performed with the assistance of “ somebody’s ” 
magical transplanting machine. This may be all partly 
true, or even wholly so; but I question much if they do not 
attribute too much of the success to the manipulation, 
and too little to other circumstances over which they 
have no control. A little inquiry, I think, will show the 
latter to be the case, and explain the reason why the 
same amount of management is unsuccessful elsewhere. 
Let us suppose two ordinary cases under operation, 
the one in Lancashire, the other in Kent or Sussex; and 
at the same time let us take an ordinary case into consi¬ 
deration, and one on which lrapgs the vvholp question of 
success in planting. Happening to be in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Manchester about the middle of last month, 
I witnessed the fall of nearly as much rain in two days 
as I have registered in Kent during the months of May, 
June, and July of the present year, which has not been 
a remarkable one. Now, it is very easy to see that the 
same success cannot well be expected in the one place as in 
the other; for we all know that rain fell at other times than 
on the 13th and 14th of August, the days I allude to. On 
this hangs the whole mystery of planting; for an Oak 
tree of forty feet high, and a Lettuce plant of less than 
four inches, are equally benefited by the refreshing 
moisture which rain brings with it, and as every one 
knows the advantage of planting out the latter in showery 
weather, especially in dry seasons and situations, the 
other is equally benefited by copious supplies of this 
all-invigorating flui£; and as we all know the utility of 
a damp atmosphere, as well as of damp earth, in supply¬ 
ing those juices to a plant which the necessarily mutilated 
roots of newly-planted trees are unable to afford, we 
may easily account for the success which attends the 
planting of large trees or shrubs in those counties where 
rain falls most abundantly, and a corresponding failure 
where there is least rain, more especially in the early 
summer months. 
If those interested in such matters would but take 
these two cases into consideration they would see that 
the difference in success was not in all cases owing to 
the treatment, but to causes over which the cultivator j 
has little or no control. True, he may deluge with water 
the ground the newly-planted tree grows on ; but how 
is he to give that agreeable humidity to the atmo¬ 
sphere which rain alone can supply? We all know the 
benefit a plant derives from its foliage, especially when 
enjoying a congenial sphere of breathing, which it does 
when the air is loaded with moisture consequent on rain ; 
but suppose a reversed state of things, that is, a dry 
atmosphere, roots mutilated, which they must be by 
removal, and the tree either struggling for an existence 
in a dry or stony soil, or probably the latter may be j 
saturated with cold spring water, an extreme almost as 
bad as the other. 
Now, taking these respective cases (and they are 
very common ones) into consideration, we need not 
wonder at the difference which is said to exist in the , 
different neighbourhoods in the planting of large trees 
or shrubs. 
As has been often said, There are no rules without 
exceptionsneither is this one, for seasons will occa¬ 
sionally occur in which a greater amount of rain than 
usual may fall in the dry districts mentioned above, or it 
may perhaps fall just at the time when wanted by the 
newly-planted trees, so that they may succeed as well as 
they do in the north-western counties or in Scotland, I 
where, in a general way, greater quantities of rain fall in 
most years. That an overplus of moisture is not necessary 
for established trees I fully believe, as most forest trees 
attain a greater size in those counties esteemed the driest; 
but a newly-planted specimen is another thing, and 
must be regarded as an artificial operation, and liable 
to its corresponding mishaps. True, we see large trees 
occasionally removed by Nature, and planted again by 
her, and flourish; but that is always done in the rainy 
season. Large trees by the side of rivers may be under¬ 
mined by the stream, and, carried down many miles, 
may be so landed at last as to grow again; but there 
is not likely to be any lack of moisture for some time 
where these are planted. We cannot imitate that; 
hut one thing we ought to learn—that the further we 
deviate from this copy the less our chance of success. 
Most of the trees washed away by rivers are those in¬ 
habiting their moist banks, and are finally deposited in 
a place somewhat like the one they were taken from, 
and consequently prosper in like manner. We may do j 
so likewise; but when we remove a large specimen, 
whose roots ramify very far in search of that scanty 
moisture so necessary to the plant’s existence, we must 
be content wifli a less measure of success when, in 
addition to the disabled roots, the foliage has to struggle 
against an atmosphere dry almost as the deserts of 
Arabia. Success under such circumstances is a more j 
difficult matter; heuce the difference between planting 
in Sussex and Derbyshire, or any two oppositely placed . 
districts in regard to the quantity of rain that falls in 
each respectively. 
While on this subject I may observe that I, for one, 
regard the success or failure in most of the crops or other 
products of the open air as being more due to natural 
causes over which we have no control than most people j 
are willing to admit. I do not know that I am over¬ 
stepping the mark by supposing that full four-fifths, or 
eighty per cent., of the credit of all crops is ciue to the 
season or natural advantages, aqd the cultivator makes 
more or less of the remaining twenty as the case may be. 
In no case will I allow that he makes up the whole of it 
by any amount of skill he has yet brought to bear on 
the matter; but it is on the total amount that lie is 
able to effect that the difference in cultivated articles 
really exists, always taking into account the season, , 
