Transplanting Large Trees 
By FRANK H. SWEET 
HE main reasons for investing $25 to $150 each 
in moving large trees are as follows: 
1. Large trees form a windbreak at once, 
avoiding the necessity of waiting ten to twenty years. 
The saving of coal alone may justify the expense. 
They sometimes transform a mere summer house 
into an all-year home. 
2. They form immediately a screen against objec¬ 
tionable features in the near or distant landscape. 
3. They give privacy and seclusion, even if no 
unsightly objects are to be hidden. 
4. They provide shade and coolness without delay. 
A large tree of the right kind may make a house from 
ten degrees to fifteen degrees cooler in summer. 
5. They provide the only method known to man 
of abolishing the crude, raw look of a place and of 
obtaining in two or three years the mellowness which 
only age can give. They are beautiful, they frame 
views, and they complete a landscape composition. 
6. For all these reasons they increase the market 
value of one’s property. 
For general purposes, of course, small trees are 
more economical, but for special purposes it will be 
seen that the use of a $25 tree having a height of 
fifteen to thirty feet wdl often indicate more economy 
than the ordinary dollar nursery tree, especially if 
one considers the saving of time and labor, which 
is no mean item when a thousand or more trees 
are considered for a period of years. If $1,000 is to 
be spent on trees, $400 of that amount could often 
be wisely invested in large trees. 
For windbreaks or screens evergreens are more 
valuable than deciduous trees. An evergreen wind¬ 
break wdl make possible an outdoor playground for 
the children in winter. It is impossible to move an 
evergreen tree with a circle of roots thirty-two feet in 
diameter, as you can a deciduous tree. Ever¬ 
greens always have to support a large amount of 
foliage from which evaporation never ceases. Dig 
up an evergreen tree and move it to your grounds 
in summer without a hall of roots, and | the 
sun and wind cause the foliage to transpire more 
rapidly than the roots can supply the leaves with 
moisture. Consequently the tree will die. Evergreen 
trees are best moved in April and May or in late Aug¬ 
ust and September, so that they have time to become 
used to their new conditions before summer drought 
or winter frost. It is possible to move a few species 
of evergreens that are twenty or thirty feet high. 
While deciduous trees are less effective for wind¬ 
breaks, particularly if the lower branches do not 
reach the ground, they furnish a greater variety in 
leaf, flower, and fruit than evergreens do. They are 
best moved when the trees are dormant—i. e., from 
the fall of the leaf until its coming out again in the 
spring—but to avoid the difficulty and cost of digging 
frozen ground, may be moved in October, November, 
March or April. Sometimes occasions arise which 
make it necessary to move a deciduous tree in full leaf. 
This can he done even in midsummer, provided extra¬ 
ordinary precautions are taken, such as removing all 
the leaves from the tree. It often happens that a new 
road or a new building threatens the life of a grand 
old tree, and that the friends of the tree do not rally 
round it until the last moment. Some large trees 
could be rescued by a public-spirited citizen who 
could raise $100 or $150 on two or three days’ notice. 
It is now possible for a New Yorker to have 
moved to his summer home a tree which was the de¬ 
light of his youth in the old New England home. 
There are many such trees which have a senti¬ 
ment connected with them that is not to be measured 
in dollars and cents, and many a man would move 
such a tree to his home if he knew it could be done. 
The methods of tree moving are various and com¬ 
plicated, and there seems to be no good reason why 
they should he detailed here. The merits of the 
different systems are as conflicting as those of differ¬ 
ent life insurance companies. It is not practicable 
ordinarily for the client to move the trees himself, 
since the necessary apparatus is too costly, and in the 
nature of things he must trust to the skill of the man 
whom he employs to do the job. He can easily con¬ 
vince himself of the reliability of the diff erent tree 
movers who compete for his business by examining 
the large trees which they have successfully moved. 
We now have nurseries of a type which were quite 
unknown fifty years ago, and which have become 
prominent only in the last ten or fifteen years. There 
are nurseries which make a specialty of large trees 
that have been transplanted for many successive 
years, or root pruned, so that they are ready for im¬ 
mediate removal on demand. The rise of great 
estates is chiefly responsible for such nurseries, but 
the era is now approaching when people of moderate 
means are freely using trees costing $25 to $40. In 
the ordinary nursery a large tree is worthless. It is 
a mere left-over and has never had a chance to de¬ 
velop symmetrically. Its roots are entangled with 
those of others and cannot be successfully extricated. 
There are a few tree movers who will agree to 
replace a tree if it fails, hut they do not want to do it, 
because they cannot control the watering of the tree 
for the first year after it is moved. It is a good plan 
for the owner to water the tree himself, under ad¬ 
vice from the mover, and not from his own gardener. 
192 
