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Much difference of opinion prevails respecting the most suitable time 
for transplanting fruit trees, some preferring the spring, and others the 
fall. Fall planting seems to be gaining ground, Hovey, Barry and 
Thomas, great authorities in this matter, I find prefer to plant in the fall. 
Lindley in his Theory of Horticulture, considered that the most favorable 
time to transplant is immediately after the leaves have fallen, or between 
the fall of the leaf and the earliest part of spring, and for these reasons, 
because the roots are more or less injured in the process, and in the win¬ 
ter when the leaves have fallen they are comparatively unimportant; but 
most essential in summer, owing to the demands made upon them by the 
perspiration of the foliage. I have found in the climate of England that 
the best time for transplanting was soon after the leaves began to fall, but 
while a quantity yet remained on the plants in a mature and efficient 
state. I was led to plant at this time by considering the state of the true 
sap of trees during winter, the change the sap must necessarily undergo 
before the buds unfold in spring, and the necessity of efficient roots to 
effect this change. It has been previously stated that every plant con¬ 
tains within itself during winter, or its season of rest, a fund of elabo¬ 
rated sap, by which its first emitted leaves, &c., are supported ; it is not 
however stored up in a fluid, but in an inspissated or concrete state, and 
before it can be made available for the support of leaves, &c., it must be 
dissolved by aqueous sap absorbed by the roots, previously to the un¬ 
folding of the buds; and in proportion to the quantity of sap thus pre¬ 
pared, which a plant contains previously to the renewal of its growth in 
spring, so will be, in a great measure, the size and vigor of the first 
emitted leaves and shoots. The roots of plants then are of great impor¬ 
tance to them during winter, as well as summer, and that season must 
therefore be the best for transplanting which, with little risk of loss or 
injury from atmospheric influences, insures the speediest renovation of 
the roots. When the leaves of a tree begin to fall, the young wood is 
nearly ripe, and in consequence of the diminished number of leaves there 
must be a corresponding diminution in the supply of sap required from 
the roots. By the action of the mature leaves which remain the injury 
which the roots had sustained are speedily repaired, the plants take hold 
of the ground and become established before winter, and are prepared to 
grow with nearly if not quite their usual vigor in the following spring. 
Very much, however depends upon the weather at the time and immedi- 
