193 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 29, 1857. 
which screened off the old kitchen garden for the last 
twenty years. The plants are all evergreens, and 
many of them are from twenty to thirty years old; 
and from eight to twenty feet high; and, more than I 
like to say, over one hundred plants. One part of the 
planting was cross-corner ways, through one of the best 
Strawberry beds in the parish. The old kitchen 
garden being now devoted to the smaller fruit—as 
Strawberries, Raspberries, Currants, and Gooseberries, 
and the whole run, on one side, with wall trees ; the 
other side being a belt of tall evergreens, to divide the 
two, and keep the fruit in the background, in a literal 
sense. 
Other things being “ all right,” how would it answer 
to transplant Strawberry plants which were one, two, 
and five, and seven years old, just at that'time, or say 
immediately before the 20th Sept. ? I do not say what 
we did with them ; but such being in our way, we must 
have done something with them; and also with a large 
bed of Raspberries through which we trenched, like re¬ 
claiming land from the wilderness. A great many Roses 
came in for a change : what was the best way to do with 
them at that season P One Pillar Rose of Coup d' Hebe, 
was twelve feet high, and thick in proportion, the day 
it was removed ; and to convince our “ Commissioner,” 
—a young philosopher in his way—of the folly of part 
of his learning, I ordered the Pillar Rose to be stripped 
of all its leaves, and to be put in the background, and 
there to be laid in by the heels till all the planting was 
finished ; and there it rests to this day : for, to tell the 
truth, we have not quite finished yet. One expense will 
not more assuredly bring on another, than a stroke of 
successful planting early in the season, will make that 
particular season a late season for planting; which may 
seem strange to those who plant but seldom. But one 
good idea in planting brings on another, and another : 
till, at last, the fit is every whit as enticing and “ ven¬ 
turesome” as regular gambling. It has been so for 
the last thirty years to my knowledge ; for I have thus 
gambled like the rest of them, and the spirit does not 
seem to come to the full till a man attains the age of 
sixty : and after that age, one might just as well 
endeavour to turn an old English gentleman from the 
British constitution, as to advise him from transplant¬ 
ing large trees and shrubs, till the autumn before his 
death. 
But, as I was going to say, in three weeks we had 
the principal part of the evergreens removed, with 
little or no balls for the roots—the plants were too old 
and too big for balls to be of much use to them. Four 
or five men could thus do the work of twelve or fifteen; 
as they could easily lift and carry a Holly twenty feet 
high, Avhich would need a couple of horses to drag it, 
were it in a ball sufficient for its size. But the best 
reason is, that this planting was done at the “ best 
time,”—the very time which all new planters ask about. 
Andwhen evergreens are transplanted at the right time, 
the plants being in the same field or garden, or not far 
distant, it is better, nine times out of ten, to take the 
smallest possible balls with them. In September, the 
effect of leaving the bulk of the roots in a ball is either 
their becoming much drier then they were before ; or, 
if watered, to be suddenly cooled unnaturally : and 
one of these changes would act injuriously. Our 
pump water at the time was 18° cooler than the 
Strawberry bed at twenty inches below the surface : 
therefore, to water those beautiful plants with it, would 
be little short of madness, as the water would im¬ 
mediately reduce the temperature of the soil about the 
roots, to the average of November weather; while the 
weather overhead was more like that of early August, 
than that of the autumnal equinox. Therefore, the 
whole of that planting was.finished without a drop of 
water to the roots. But, as luck would have it, a heavy 
rain came on soon after ; which was so mild, that the 
whole side of the garden “ smoked of a morning,” as 
the commissioner told me afterwards. 
Towards the end of January, or sooner if we have 
frost, the whole surface of the newly-planted parts 
will be mulched with the Cocoa-nut refuse. 
From Sej)tember till now, we have been removing 
large trees of the Deodar, Cupressus, Libocedrus, 
Juniperus, Pinus, and Abies; but the Abies andPicea 
do little good in this part of Surrey. 
We have moved, also, a whole Rosary ; and, by-the- 
by, one of the best, if not the best “ Fountain Rose ” 
in England. Now, Mr. Rivers, which is your largest- 
sized “ Fountain Rose ?”— a most appropriate name of 
your own making. This one is just eighteen feet in 
diameter ; and, by a little indulgence, it might count 
twenty feet, making a good walk round such a head ; 
and it is no more than the Dog Rose requires, to keep 
it in good health, and to make it grow thicker and 
thicker every year. Surely the world will not go on 
much longer murdering two-thirds of our best Roses 
on the Dog Rose stock, not in cold blood, but in want of 
blood altogether. How we come to know that it is no 
more than such a head as would keep the Dog Rose, 
increasing in diameter, is, that this one was trans¬ 
planted five years back, when the roots were much 
cut back ; and two or three of them still go on throwing 
up suckers. Now, in the woods and wilds, when the 
Dog Rose is full-headed, carrying large crops of hips 
every year, it ceases to make suckers, or very few in¬ 
deed. It would be a good criterion of the health of a 
Rosary, if we were to measure all our best standards, 
and note the diameters in the Rose catalogue, and find 
a sensible increase, say every third year. If a Rose 
stock be in good health, it will increase sufficient to be 
perceived in that time; but if it be not so, it will not 
give a perceptible increase of diameter in ten years ; 
and in five or ten more years it is dead and forgotten : 
although, there is nothing to show, why a Dog Rose 
on its own roots should not live two or three hundred 
years. 
The most singular thing which we noticed in this 
work, was the perfectly perpendicular downward ten¬ 
dency of the roots of the Deodars. Out of a dozen of 
large plants, which were transplanted from the nur¬ 
series not longer than five or six years, not one of 
them made a side-root a foot long—every root went 
down as straight as a plumb-line ; some of them to the 
length of from five to seven feet: the last four of 
which were of the same size and full of fibres ; show¬ 
ing they have grown very fast, and that the soil par¬ 
ticularly agreed with them. They were in a newly- 
trenched piece of meadow—a black-sandy, light loam, 
with a very sandy bottom ; and it was into this sand 
that the roots spread; or, rather, did not spread, but 
went right down into it, without any side-roots. Now, 
to take a ball with any of these trees would be impos¬ 
sible. A pillar, five feet long, and two feet in diameter, 
will represent the kind of “ball” required. All we 
could do was, to leave about eighteen inches across, and 
from six to nine inches in thickness, round the stem of 
each tree ; so that one man could carry a ten, twelve, 
or fifteen-feet tree on his shoulders, after once having 
it out of the pit. The men had to help each other out 
of the pits, by lengths of arms. I never saw such a 
thing in all my experience. But, having put quantities 
of the Cocoa-nut fibre in, under, and over the roots, 
and then fixed them with three or five cords tied to so 
many points in the circumference, I think they will 
grow, every one of them ; but if I had known how 
they stood before that arrangement was settled, these 
roots would have been first cut round, and the trees 
left another year. The last of them was finished on 
the 18th of December, with about one pound of ball 
