Besides the above mentioned part of orchard, we have, by this practice, removed successfully (in some cases so much so as that no trace of the removal appeared), a considerable number of trees, where they were growing too close, and think it simpler, and much superior to Sir Henry’s, wherever the stool of the tree can be turned up with a large cake of earth, as in cases where the greater part of the roots run out horizontally near the surface, which always occurs in flat ground, when the subsoil is soaking with moisture the greater part of the season. Whatever risk there may be of the tree not growing when it has been subjected to all Sir Henry’s formal and tedious process, assisted by costly machinery, there is none here, provided it is placed in drained trenched ground, as a considerable number of the small fibres on which the suction of moisture for supply of the leaves depends, remain untouched, with this earth around them, and {241} strike out immediately in the new moist soft soil; and there is no laceration of the main roots, which, by Sir Henry’s plan, cannot altogether be avoided, this laceration being much more pernicious, and likely to occasion putrescency, than simple cross section[49].
By the above sledging practice, we have successfully removed fruit trees 2 1⁄2 feet in circumference, at two feet from the ground, and have had some 20 feet high, make a new addition to their height of six inches the first summer, where no shortening of the top had taken place. We have also plucked fair loads of fruit, both first and second season, as large {242} and well matured as any of the same kind produced by trees which had not been touched; but it is generally prudent not to allow them to fruit the first two seasons. As an experiment, we cut most of the branches from the top of two of the trees—that is, headed them down, but found these did not grow so well as those which were only slightly pruned, or not pruned at all.
Pruning at planting should take place in cases where there are long annual shoots of the preceding season, or much close spray as in old fruiting-trees; the former should be cut in, to five or six buds in length, and the latter ought to be thinned, to an extent, which the kind of tree, the largeness and safe state of the root, soil, exposure, and climate, must determine: we request our readers to pay attention to this. Pruning the long annual shoots, prevents a too early formation of leaves, which often occurs in moist cold soil, and which wither before the roots begin to strike.
In some cases, where we found the earth too friable, and not sufficiently bound together by the roots, to rise up in a cake, we first prepared the stool for upsetting, and waited for hard frost[50] to bind {243} the earth and roots into a firm body like a large millstone, pouring some water upon it the evening previous to the commencement of the frost, that it might become firmer; we then proceeded with our sledging during the frost if the road was smooth; and, if rough, we covered over the frozen root with straw to retain the frost; and the first day of fresh, when the ground was soft and slippery above, and hard underneath, we proceeded with our work, taking care not to cover up the root with earth till it had thawed. We have found (contrary to general opinion), that no injury is sustained by exposure of the roots of various kinds of trees to frost, or as great cold as generally occurs at the surface of the ground in this climate. We have succeeded equally well with pear-trees, which had lain out on the exposed bare crown of a ridge for two months of winter, without the smallest quantity of earth adhering to the roots, or protection of any kind, as with those immediately from the ground where they grew. We have even thought that a certain exposure of the roots to cold increased their susceptibility to be stimulated to strike quicker by the warmth of the ground in spring, and thus the root suction coming to act sooner than it usually does in transplanted trees without balls, and nearer the time of the expansion {244} of the leaves; the check occasioned by the upper vegetation being too forward for the lower, was not so great. In some cases a slight degree of withering also appeared to have a good effect in deterring the development of the buds till the earth acquired a warmth sufficient for the root striking.
We succeeded to our wish with those we transplanted by sledging, excepting a few which were placed among young trees obtained from a sale nursery. These young plants brought along with them a number of the eggs of the common green caterpillar. These eggs produced larvæ upon the young trees the following spring; and these larvæ going down into the earth, produced a small grey silvery moth in July. The moths, from the tallest plants being most opposed to them in their flight, or from being guided by common parasitical instinct to choose the largest subjects, deposited their eggs upon the removed old trees in preference to those on which they had been brought from the nursery,—a preference which did not seem to arise from any sickliness of the old, as they were fully as vigorous the first summer after transplanting as the young. These imported vermin prospering under the propitious dry warm summer of 1826, rendered several of the old trees as bare of foliage the second and third June after {245} removal as they were in December; they have now, however, recovered their vigour, shaken off their parasites, and have produced good loads of fruit.
We may be thought fastidious in our tastes, and extravagant in our wishes, but we desire and expect more of our country gentlemen than to be mere idlers, or worse than idlers,—practisers of the Allanton system. When they turn their attention to forestry, we would have them to sow, or to plant from the nursery, and not to disturb and torture the fine growing timber which their fathers had located, and which generally suffers irreparable injury from removal,—a system to which Sir Henry Steuart is so absurdly attached, as to recommend its practice, although only to turn the lee side of the tree round to the wind in the same spot. Nor have we much sympathy with Sir Walter Scott’s taste for home-keeping squires,—those Shallows and Slenders with whom our great dramatist has made himself so merry. We would have our landed gentlemen to know that they are the countrymen,—many of them, perhaps, of the blood of the Raleighs, the Drakes, and the Ansons. Let them, like our Wellington, our Nelson, our Cochrane, Wilson, Miller, and many others, continue to set before the world some little assurance of British manhood. Let them, like our {246} no less honourable Penns, and Baltimore, and Selkirk, lay foundations of future empires. We would have our young men of fortune go abroad into the world as soon as their scholastic education is completed,—not to spend a few idle years in Paris, Rome, or other of the common enervating haunts,—they might as well remain in mother’s drawingroom or father’s stable; but to view man and nature under every appearance. Let them acquire horsemanship on the Pampas of La Plata; hunt the lion and the elephant, and other game, at the Cape, and study the botany and natural history of these prolific wilds. Let their ideas shoot while they recline under the lone magnificence of the primeval forest, while they gallop over the unappropriated desert, free as the Bedouin, or lie down composedly to sleep, serenaded by the hyena and jackal’s howl, and lion’s roar. Let them learn geology and mineralogy on the Andes and Himalaya, and around every shore where the strata are denuded. Let them wind about among those abrupt rocks and craggy precipices, where they may contemplate the sea-bird’s household economy—the wild herbs of the cliff—the vegetation and shells and monsters of the ocean—the solitary white sail from distant land—the vestiges of olden time, the exuviæ of former worlds, in the {247} exposed strata—the abrasion of the rocky land by the continued battering of the numberless pebbles moved backward and forward by the heaving of the ceaseless wave. Let them study the currents, and winds, and meteorology on the ocean, and enjoy the sublime feeling of riding over it in its wildest mood. Let them join the ranks of freedom in any quarter of the world where freedom is opposed to tyranny. Let them head the savage horde, and introduce the morality and arts of Britain among the ignorant barbarian; or lead out colonies of our starved operatives to new lands of high agricultural capability, where for centuries no population-preventive checks would be necessary. No other employment of life could be so abounding in heart-stirring emotion, as leading out the enthusiastic emigrants, with their huddled groups of children, whom you know you have rescued from the irksome unhealthy toil and wretchedness of the city manufactory; no occupation could be more delightful than cherishing the new-born settlement during the privations and hardships of infancy; in procuring a supply of food, when through mistakes, owing to ignorance of the climate and other circumstances, success had not attended their industry; and in leading them on to an effective self government. One would gladly leave {248} this old world, whose surface is disfigured all over by man’s patched drilled deformities, and pass on to a new one, where inviolated nature has produced and reared her own children after her own fashion, where every plant occupies its own place and blossoms in its own time. This order must afford intense delight to the naturalist, independent of the novelty of every thing, from the constellation in the sky to the lichen on the stone. In such a place, one should feel remorse to suffer the hatchet to work, or the ploughshare to enter in.
We fear these amusements (to which indeed, the British seem more disposed than any other people), would spoil all relish for the Allanton system, and that our travellers, on their return, would suffer the thriving trees planted by their fathers to remain at rest, and rather incline to introduce into the park some of their hardy foreign favourites—the iron-wood evergreens of Patagonia, the valuable pines and other trees of New Zealand and Eastern Asia. We believe, also, that an acquaintance with the real world, obtained in this way, would be much better fitted, than the following Sir Walter’s recommendation, to render our gentlemen in after life able and ready to direct at the nation’s councils, and to improve their estates, and the condition of their dependents. {249} Perhaps they would then disdain to hang on at St Stephen’s, the contemptible retainers (all but in livery) of some intriguing member of the cabinet, like hungry jackals (call-jack), for the pickings their master might leave them.
Having now looked at the general bearing of our subject, we shall approach it a little closer, to examine the facts, inductions, and minutiæ of the practice.
When we first heard of Sir Henry Steuart’s celebrated discoveries and new system of moving about large live trees, and read Sir Walter Scott’s declaration, that Birnam wood might now in reality come down living to Dunsinane, we were disposed to hold Sir Henry a magician, and were not a little alarmed lest grown up trees might indeed acquire, under his art, the locomotive power, and gallop about, to the no small terror and danger of his Majesty’s subjects; but, on closer examination, we find all Sir Henry’s art resolve itself into transferring them from one hole into another, by the labour of real men and horses, without injuring the trees to such a degree as preclude hope of recovery under proper subsequent attention. His mode of performing this may be stated shortly as follows:—
1st, Procure sturdy subjects, not drawn up tall {250} and delicate in close plantations, but with short stem balanced all round with numerous compact branches, and well and regularly rooted, such as occur in open situation on level surface. If you have not trees possessing these prerequisites ready at hand Go prepare them. Thin out your young woods to double and triple distance, according as you intend to transfer them to sheltered or exposed situations; cut the roots of these trees, and trench around them at a few feet distant from the bulb, or lay down rich compost mould around them, to encourage exuberance of rooting, and in eight or ten years you will have fit subjects for removal!