408 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
rich loam, and should he sown in patches, very thinly, 
any time in October. It was lirst introduced into this 
country about the year 1704. 
TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES. 
I received the following letter from a gentleman who 
is intimate at the Experimental Garden; but I told him, 
in my answer, that I should send the particulars to The 
Cottage Gardener. Every practical planter of large 
trees, every nurseryman in the kingdom, and almost all 
writers on the subject, know the value of preparing such 
large trees beforehand; yet, after all, nine-tenths of such 
large trees never receive due attention, or any sort of 
attention at all, till the planting season arrives. Hence 
the reason why so many of them die or do badly for a 
long time. There is no reason why a tree which four 
horses could draw on a truck should die or do badly 
after transplanting, if the proper means to secure it 
were resorted to, and at the proper time. That time is 
now at hand, and the proper means are explained, as 
far as I know them, in the answer to this letter:— 
“ It is my wish in the autumn to move and transplant 
two or three dozen deciduous trees of twenty or twenty- 
five years’ growth, and which have never been yet dis¬ 
turbed but by the wind. 
“ This operation must be begun and completed between 
the 20th of August and the 20th of October, and I am 
naturally desirous of effecting this with as little danger 
or check to the trees as possible, and with economy. 
“ How can I best accomplish this task ? Can I make 
any preparation to insure success ? 
“I have just read your remarks in The Cottage 
Gardener (as I always do), and I observe you make 
mention of a new ‘lever’ or transplanter invented at 
Shrubland. What is it, and where can it be seen nearer 
home ? or could I not make one myself by writing to 
the ‘ honest ’ inventor ? ” 
You are fortunate in having thought of this job just 
at the right moment. You shall, therefore, run very 
little risk, and the trees need not suffer much. The first 
thing to be done is to prepare the roots, and the whole 
month of April is the best time of the year for doing 
that, whether they are trees or shrubs, evergreen or 
deciduous. Have the roots cut round by opening a 
trench one foot wide, and three feet from the stems of 
the trees. After getting out the first eight or nine inches 
of the surface soil of the trench with the spade, let the 
rest of the soil be loosened by degrees with a three¬ 
pronged fork, and let this loose soil be cast out of the 
trench with the spade, taking care not to hurt the roots 
with it. The depth of the trench for your trees 
may be about twenty inches, more or less. Roots which 
are too large to cut with a knife may be sawn off 
close to the side of the ball next to the tree. Roots of 
the size of one’s thumb may be cut a little longer, say 
half way across the trench, and the very small fibry 
roots saved whole as much as possible; that is, within 
the compass of the trench. If any of the roots are 
mutilated by the spade or fork, have the parts cut out 
clean with a knife, and the cut ends of all the roots will 
make fresh roots, as cuttings do, and these are the right 
kind of roots to feed the tree in the new place. Before 
the trench is filled up have one side of the ball reduced 
carefully at the bottom with the fork to very nearly half 
its diameter, in order to see if there be any tap roots 
which grow perpendicularly downwards, and if you see 
more than one such tap root cut them all except one; 
but one tap root should be left untouched to sustain 
the tree. Some are fond of cutting all tap roots at this 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 17, 1857. 
stage, but there is little serse shown in that. Suppose 
a dry, hot summer follows, the effect of cutting the 
whole of the tap roots wou d be to give the tree such a 
check as would unquestionably hinder the formation of 
the proper quantity of feeding roots from the side ones 
which must necessarily be cut, just as a few hours of 
hot sunshine on a pot of cuttings would pinch and 
hinder them from making roots in the usual time. If 
you find poor or bad soil at the bottom of the trench, 
out with it, and put as much from the surface soil in 
its place. In filling the trench keep the small roots, if 
any, as high or a little higher than they were before, and 
pack the soil firmly about them as the work proceeds, 
but leave the surface quite loose, that the rains may 
enter as freely as can be. 
The first thing to be done in the autumn, when you 
begin to remove the trees, is this—let a man take a 
rope and a ladder, aud fasten the rope round the tree as 
high as he can reach. By means of this rope you can pull 
down the tree to any side you may think the safest, so as 
not to hurt other trees near it, or its own larger branches. 
If you forget the rope till the tree is ready to be thrown 
over, the chances are that your man will break his neck 
by the tree falling over with his weight. The next thing 
is to open a trench four feet from the stem of the tree, 
that is, outside the former trench. The spade will do here 
all the way to the bottom; then with the fork loosen 
down the soil of the former trench into the new trench, 
and throw this soil out also. By this time you will have 
a fringe of young roots all round the ball, and your 
men must handle them as gently as possible. 
The next step is to reduce the ball itself as much as 
you possibly can do with the fork. It is sheer folly to 
think that a heavy ball is of any use to a tree thus 
prepared, farther than to steady the tree in the new 
place; balls are only useful to such trees as have not 
been properly prepared at the proper time. The new 
roots are the feeders, not the old ones that are in the 
ball; and the new roots being all freed of the soil, as I have 
just said, no more harm can come fromreducing the whole 
ball to nothing than is done already. Thus we reduce 
the ball and the expense of removing large trees to a 
minimum, and I will hold my old head on tbe block if the 
reduction of the ball is not just as useful to the tree as 
that of the expense would be to the owner. Therefore, 
reduce the ball as much as possible, and then is the time 
to pull the guy rope, and when the tree is on one side 
is the right time to get at the tap root; cut it wherever 
you can get at it, and the work is three parts done. 
The other part is the planting, and the hole must be 
four feet across, and nearly as deep as that from which 
the tree is taken; but it must be so formed with good 
surface soil as to resemble the shape of a handbasin. 
This is the grandest secret in all planting, and the 
meaning of it is this:—A hole four feet wide, and deep 
enough for the roots, is opened, with the sides cut down 
perpendicularly; then the perpendicular is made into a 
slope, like the inside of a handbasin, with loose surface , 
soil, before the tree is put in. Ninety-nine persons out of 
one hundred put in the soil on the slope after the tree is 
placed in the bottom, but tbe first is the best plan. Any 
stupid fellow can take up a tree if you only tell him not 
to hurt the roots; but it requires great practical skill 
even to learn the value of the proper way to plant it, 
and much more so to do it after knowing the value. It 
took many years’ hard writing before we convinced very i 
sensible men of the danger, the bad effects, and the real 
stupidity of shaking a plant up and down while it was 
being planted, just as if the man was trying for butter 
with the handle of a plunge churn. That injurious 
practice is over now, but it will take some years yet to 
convince the great bulk of planters of the value of water 
and handbasins in planting trees; that is, to convince 
them of the grand secret. 
