TRANSPLANTATION OF TREES.

THE Marquis de Chastelleux traveled through a considerable part of the territory of the Atlantic states, during the revolutionary war, and published a volume of sketches, which have gained no little notoriety. They had the merit, at least, of showing the First Impressions of a foreigner, well qualified to scrutinize the surface of men and manners, if no more; and the following lively passage is but one among very many, which might be cited, to illustrate the strange aspect a country like ours, situated as it was at the time of these travels, must have worn to the eye of an inhabitant of the elder hemisphere. In the course of a ride between Farmington and Litchfield, the Marquis had occasion to inquire into the history of what is called, in some sections, to this day, a clearing. It was "the work of a single man, who, in the course of a year, had cut down several arpents of wood, and had built himself a house in the middle of a pretty extensive territory he had cleared." Then, after remarking, that, subsequently, he had found these improvements, or new settlements, going on in all the wildest and remotest regions of America he had traversed, the Marquis proceeds to describe the mode in which these things were commonly effected.

After the choice of a location in the wilderness, and the purchase of it, he says the settler "there conducts [the American translation] a cow, some pigs, and two indifferent horses, which do not cost him above four guineas each." Certain provisions also are laid in, and then commences the attack on the forest.

"He begins with felling all the smaller trees, and some strong branches of the larger ones: these he makes use of as fences for the first field he wishes to clear. He next boldly attacks those immense oaks, or pines, which one would take for the ancient lords of the territory he is usurping; he strips them of their bark, or lays them all round with his axe. These trees, mortally wounded, are the next spring robbed of their honors; their leaves no longer spring, their branches fall, and their trunk becomes a hideous skeleton. This trunk seems still to brave the efforts of the new colonist; but where there are the smallest chinks or crevices, it is surrounded by fire, and the flames consume what the iron was unable to destroy," &c. &c.

What an air of vitality is there in this description. It sketches a complete Homeric contest, in which the trees have just as vigorous a part to play as the colonist who "attacks" them; and the circumstance, subsequently mentioned, that the latter builds himself, after a short time, a shelter, in the shape of a log-hut, and then finds himself truly "a comfortable planter," infallibly recalls that barbarous custom, which some of the heroes of olden time practised, of not only stripping the bodies of the dead, but converting the very skulls of the poor men into drinking-cups—and, for aught we can say, into porringers, pill-boxes, and other utensils not fit to be named.

ness.

The simile is a fair one, and is as applicable to our day as to that of the pioneers who have made our paths straight before us in the wilderJust such would seem to be the feeling between the squatter, or the accredited settler, and the forest into which he migrates, be the same in the state of Maine, or in the territory of Michigan. He looks upon so many trees, for the most part, as so many Indians in war-time.

No mercy is to be shown them. They must be cut down and cast out, root and branch, like the Pequots-so far, that is, as the boundaries and title-deeds of the invader give him the right of massacre. If a few survive the general ruin

Rari nantes in gurgite vasto

it is either because the destroyer is weary of his work, or because he chooses-much in the spirit which a cat shows in the tuition of a mouse-to reserve something, with a view of continuing the bloody entertainment of destruction at a more convenient season. With some certainty, however, you may rely on his exterminating the whole tribe, men, women, and children; and rather than even leave a few of "those immense oaks," to be the Sachems of fresh generations, he will, some ten years after his task of devastation is completed, labor to supply their places by setting out, with infinite pains, an avenue of beechen bean-poles half trimmed, or sundry beggarly poplars, of foreign stock, nearly corresponding, in both appearance and substance, to the human hordes sometimes introduced among us from the same sections of the world.

This hostility to the noblest of our native vegetation has not been confined to those individuals who have had personal occasion to meet that enemy in the "field." Neither, in their case, or more generally, has it ceased with the circumstances which gave it birth. Those, who have gone into the forest, with axe on shoulder, might be excused for regarding that forest very much as Captain Church and his soldiers regarded King Philip and his noblest Wampanoags, when "the army raised a great shout" at the fall of the miserable monarch of the woods. The habit of contending and conquering,-as the new settler in this country always has been obliged, more or less, to contend against and conquer, alike, the savage and the greenwood tree,-must be expected to encourage both combativeness and destructiveness, and to leave on the individual's mind, at the best, some feeling of contemptuous prejudice. Hence, the disparagement of forest trees, and of arboriculture, is an Americanism-like the lingering dislike which the mass of our population have ever had for the aborigines.

Under these circumstances, what progress could be looked for in the art of transplantation among Americans? For that matter, indeed, it has made no great progress any where; and this lack of attention to such a subject, in England and the other old countries especially, is really one of the wonders of the day. It is wonderful, we mean to say, that, among an inventive, intelligent, industrious people, to whom luxury and enormous wealth every day offer every inducement to carry the arts and sciences to their utmost length, for all conceivable purposes-and where no pecuniary consideration is too great to be sacrificed even to mere fashion, without reference to utility, beauty, or propriety-it should have continued universally customary till within fifteen years or less, and very generally so to this moment, for the richest proprietors of the most splendidly situated estates to commence the embellishment of them, so far as trees are concerned, (a principal feature of course, in every landscape,) with planting such shoots, sprigs, and poles, as it must require some thirty or forty years to render any thing like a decoration. In a word, men have been content to

plant trees for their posterity, instead of themselves; and no wonder that such an act, under such circumstances, should be considered, as Washington Irving calls it, a proof of a generous mind.

The truth is, that a large tree may just as well be transplanted, so far as the vitality and prosperity of the tree are concerned, as a small one. In the words of Sir Henry Stuart-" Size, in an art founded on scientific principles, is a mere matter of choice and expenditure; for trees of the greatest size are as susceptible of removal, as those of the least."

Let us look a little into the proof of this bold assertion, for it is evident enough, if it be true, that it indicates the establishment of a new art, and one which, sooner or later, in all civilized countries, must be in great demand.

The transplantation of large trees, in past ages, has occurred very rarely, and has generally, in those few cases, been accomplished at a vast expense of money, and an equal sacrifice of materials. The instances, however, are quite enough to prove the practicability of the process. Pliny speaks of elms twenty feet high, near Rome, being removed into vineyards, for the training of vines; and mentions also the transplantation of a fir, which had a tap-root eight feet long, reckoning from the place where it was broken off in the process. The younger Seneca, writing from the villa of Scipio Africanus, says he had there learned the art of removing a whole orchard of old trees; and that, after the third or fourth year, they produced an abundant crop of fruit. Virgil, also, refers to the occasional skill of the Roman husbandmen in the same art.

In modern times, the principal case is that of Count Maurice, of Nassau, who was governor of Brazil, in 1636, when that settlement was in the hands of the Dutch. He resided on a dreary island, at the confluence of two rivers. There was neither tree nor bush upon it when he erected a palace, and laid out his grounds. He then covered them with the finest trees, of various species-" the choicest fruits of a tropical climate, the orange, the citron, the ananas, solicited at once the sight, the smell, and the taste;" and, to crown all, seven hundred cocoa trees were planted over the estate, large numbers of them having a stature of from thirty to fifty feet, up to the lower most branches, and an age of seventy or eighty years. The result appears to have been successful in the highest degree.

Other instances are recorded of Evelyn, in his famous Sylva, and of a French Mareschal, who removed huge oaks at the Chateau de Fiat, not many years after the count's experiment, and perhaps in consequence of his success. The Elector Palatine transplanted a number of large lime-trees, and they "prospered rarely well," as Evelyn states, notwithstanding they were taken up in midsummer, and their heads cut off (according to the barbarous old custom) in the outset.

Louis XIV. of France, however, bore the palm away in this art, from all his cotemporaries. About the year 1670, having ascertained the extent to which the process was carried by the ancients, he undertook to decorate the royal residences, at Versailles and Trianon, in the same manner. Thus, it is said, was removed nearly the whole of what is still called the Bois de Boulogne, a distance of about two leagues and a half, to its present site. The traces of the operation

are yet visible in the rectilinear disposition of the tress, and the machine used on the occasion was preserved as a curiosity for a long time afterwards.

The English took the hint from some of these experiments, and we accordingly find Evelyn stating that he had himself seen trees transplanted "almost as big as his waist." Rich noblemen occasionally tried the process, though at a great expense, and doubtless with a frequent want of success. A Devonshire proprietor is said to have removed oaks as large as twelve oxen could draw. Lord Fitzharding, who lived in Evelyn's day, was in the habit of transplanting oaks of about the size of his thigh, and he deserves mention as the first who is known to have effected the operation without decapitating and otherwise mangling the tree.

During the eighteenth century some improvements were introduced in the art, but not much use was made of them. Since the commencement of the present more has been done. Dr. Graham, Professor of Botany in Edinburgh University, distinguished himself by an experiment of the kind some twelve years ago. Among his trees were ashes, alders, limes, and white-beams, of the height of thirty and forty feet, and with a girth of from two and a half to four feet at the height of one. Sir Henry Stuart, who is a competent judge, entitles this "the most splendid achievement in horticultural transplanting ever known in Britain." On the continent the experiment has been tried with a success somewhat like that of Louis XIV. by other potentates in much the same way. Such examples, however, have served to discourage imitation rather than induce it.

But the leading case, and that which may be called the first application of the true science of transplantation on a liberal scale, and with a satisfactory result in all respects, is that of the author of the Planter's Guide-Sir Henry Stuart, of Allanton, in Scotland. In his park there was originally no water, and scarcely a tree or bush in the vicinity of the present water, which was made in 1820; and in that year and 1821, the adjoining grounds were abundantly covered with wood of such size as to give the estate, according to the engravings in the proprietor's book, the appearance of a forest of considerable antiquity. When the Committee of the Highland Society for promoting arboriculture, visited the place, in the fall of 1823, both trees and underwood had obtained a full and deep-colored leaf, and health and vigor were restored to them. "In a word," says Sir Henry-and the Committee sufficiently justify the force of his remark—“ the whole appeared like a spot at least forty years planted." The Quarterly Review also, in 1828, seemed to consider the experiment a conclusive triumph, such as the world had never before seen. “the Park of Allanton, its history being duly considered, is pilgrimage as any of the established lions of the The Edinburgh, after giving the baronet credit for noble and magnificent trees which now surround him," speaks of his publication as the first application of the science to the art of planting, they might have termed his plantation, with equal justice, the first application of the art to the science.

It says, as well worthy of a North Countrie.'" "conjuring up the

The Committee above mentioned, comprised, we see, Sir Walter Scott, and several other gentlemen distinguished for practical knowl

edge of the subject-matter. These persons reported, unanimously, that the art of transplantation, as practised by Sir Henry, "is calculated to accelerate, in an extraordinary degree, the power of raising wood, whether for beauty or shelter." It appears that the park encloses about one hundred and twenty acres. The soil is clay, loam, and gravel,-parts of it far from fertile,-about four hundred feet above the level of the sea,-the climate and country, (as the Edinburgh drily observes,) Scotland, in which Dr. Johnson said, half a century since, there was hardly timber enough for a walking-stick. The trees, either in single, or in open or close groups, consisted of birch, Scotch elm, sycamore, lime, horse-chestnut, oak, holly, beech, and others, somewhere from thirty to forty feet high, or more, and the girth of the largest was from five feet three to five feet eight inches, at a foot and a half from the ground. These trees were putting forth shoots of eighteen inches, though they stood in the most exposed situations. The leaves of those planted most recently, were smaller than those of the older, but this difference was imperceptible after the third year from the removal. One of the copses, composed of trees from twenty to thirty feet high, interspersed with underwood, had been planted but five years, and yet the committee assigned thirty or forty years as the probable time in which such a screen could be formed by ordinary means. They stated, moreover, that of all the trees they examined, one alone seemed to have failed, and that they found no traces of any dead tree having been removed. The Baronet, in his book, states that his average loss has been one in from forty to forty-five.

Since this experiment of Sir Henry has proved thus successful, quite a number of proprietors of large estates, chiefly friends and neighbors of his, have availed themselves of his example and instruction to decorate their grounds in like manner; and, indeed, the system of which he may be called the founder, has acquired an established reputation throughout Great-Britain. Sir Walter Scott was among the number just named. That distinguished writer was no less a lover of nature in fact, than in fancy and poetry; and he was so enthusiastically attached to the cultivation of wood in particular, that, in the course of the sixteen years, during which he owned Abbotsford, he had planted over nearly five hundred acres of surface. In 1824 and 1825, he transplanted about forty trees of considerable size, on Stuart's principles, and the success of the process was complete. A large part of the underwood, which adds very much to the picturesque beauty of Abbotsford, was the result of the same system.

Mr. Lockhart, of Cleghorn, member of Parliament, tried it successfully, also, in 1827, on a number of oaks, beeches, larches, sycamores, and horse-chestnuts, ranging from twenty-five to thirty-five feet in height, and from ten to fourteen inches in diameter. In the same year, another gentleman, in Lanark county, removed eleven oaks and ashes, with a girth of two and a half feet. A rich Glasgow banker

decorated his country estate, on the Clyde, in the same manner. Mr. Smith, in the same neighborhood, removed some fine subjects of even fifty years of age; and another Clyde proprietor is mentioned as having "completely changed the appearance of his place," by an outlay of about twenty pounds on the same plan.