Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

downwards upon which the whole success of the practice depends. Secondly, great care should be taken, in raising the bark of the stock for the insertion of the bud, that the cambium be not disturbed or injured. The cambium is a secretion between the wood and bark, not only destined to support the descending fibres of the buds, but also to generate the new cellular substance within which the descending fibres are finally found imbedded. If, in the preparation of the bark for receiving the bud, this cambium be injured or disturbed, it becomes much less capable of effecting the cohesion that is necessary, than if uninjured. In budding, therefore, the bark should be carefully lifted up, and not forced from the wood with a bone or metal blade, as is usually the case; for although it is no doubt true, that an operation clumsily performed will often succeed, yet it should be remembered, that if skilfully managed it would be attended with much more perfect success; and that a habit of constantly operating with delicacy will enable a gardener to succeed with certainty in cases in which a bungling practitioner would be sure to fail. Little do those who crush with rude hands the tender limbs of plants, reflect how delicate is that organisation upon which the life of their victim is dependent.

Transplanting is, perhaps, that operation in which the greatest difficulty is generally found to exist, and in which the causes of success or failure are often the least understood. Volumes have been written upon the subject, and the whole range of vegetable physiology has been called in aid of the explanation of the theory; yet I am much mistaken if it cannot be proved to depend exclusively upon the two following circumstances: 1. The preservation of the spongioles of the roots; and, 2. The prevention of excessive evapora

tion.

It is well known that plants feed upon fluid contained

in the soil, and that their roots are the mouths through which the food is conveyed into their body. But the absorption of fluid does not take place either by all the surface of their roots, nor even of their fibres, but only by the extremities of the latter, consisting of bundles of vessels surrounded by cellular tissue in a very lax spongy state, whence those extremities are called spongioles. That it is only through the spongioles that absorption to any amount takes place, is easily shown by growing a plant in water and alternately preventing the action of the spongioles, when languor and a cessation of vital action comes on, and preventing the action of the general surface of the roots, leaving the spongioles at liberty, when the vital energies are immediately renewed. These spongioles are exceedingly delicate in their organisation, and a very slight degree of violence destroys them. It is scarcely possible to remove the soil from the roots without injuring them in some degree and if transplantation is effected violently or carelessly, they are in a great measure destroyed. In proportion to the size or age of a tree, is the difficulty of preserving them increased; and hence at the same time the difficulty of transplantation is augmented. If, by any method, the spongioles could be preserved unharmed, there would be no reason whatever why the largest forest tree should not be removed as easily as the young plants in a nursery; but their preservation in such cases is impossible, and therefore the transplantation of trees of great magnitude cannot be effected. It is because of the security of the spongioles from injury when the earth is undisturbed, that plants reared in pots are transplanted with so much more success than if taken immediately from the soil. Hence, also, when earth is frozen into a huge ball around the root of a plant, transplantation is effected with the same kind of certainty. The practice of cutting the roots of large trees the year previous to removing

them is attended with success for a similar reason. Wherever the roots are cut through, the new fibres which are emitted, provided a plant is in health, in short tufts, and each terminated by a spongiole, are much more easily taken out of the ground without injury than if they were longer and more scattered among the soil. When destroyed, the spongioles are often speedily replaced, particularly in orchard trees, provided a slight degree of growth continues to be maintained. This is one of the reasons why trees removed in October succeed better than if transplanted at any other time. The growth of a tree at that season is not quite over; and the first impulse of nature, when the tree finds itself in a new situation, is to create new mouths by which to feed when the season for growing again returns.

Evaporation takes place in plants to an inconceivable degree in certain circumstances. It is known by the experiments of Dr. Hales, that a sunflower plant will lose as much as 1lb. 14 oz. by perspiration in twelve hours; and that in general, "in equal surfaces and equal times, a man would perspire 30, the plant 15, or as 50: 15;" and that taking all things into account, a sunflower perspires 17 times more than a man. The same most accurate observer found that a cabbage perspired in twelve hours 1lb. 9oz. ; a Paradise Stock in a pot, 11 ounces; and a Lemon Plant, 8 oz. Guettard states that he found Cornus Mascula perspire twice its own weight in a day; and Mr. Knight has remarked a Vine in a hot day losing moisture with such rapidity that a glass placed under one of its leaves was speedily covered with dew, and in half an hour the perspiration was running off the glass. In damp or wet weather this evaporation is least ; in hot dry weather it is greatThis loss has all to be supplied by the moisture introduced into the system by the spongioles; and hence, if the spongioles are destroyed, and evaporation

est.

takes place before they can be replaced, a plant must necessarily die. This is the reason why deciduous trees cannot be transplanted when in leaf; it is impossible to remove them without injuring their spongioles, and it is equally impossible to hinder the evaporation by their leaves: but if they are kept in pots, it matters not at what season their removal takes place, because as their spongioles are then uninjured, even excessive evaporation would be made good by their action. It is well known that certain evergreens, such as Hollies, Laurels, &c. can be transplanted in almost all months; this arises from their perspiration being much less copious than in deciduous trees, wherefore the spongioles have less difficulty in supplying the loss occasioned by it; yet even evergreens cannot be removed in the hottest months in the year, because then the action of such spongioles as may be saved in the operation would not be sufficient to supply the waste by evaporation. Plants first beginning to grow in the spring, with their leaves just turning green, are in a most unfit state to remove; for, when transplanted, their roots will not have time to form a sufficient number of new spongioles to supply the loss to which the rapid perspiration by the leaves at that season will give rise. It is upon this same principle, that if deciduous plants are taken from the ground in the summer, they are put into pots and placed in a hot-bed to recover; not for the sake of the heat, but because the atmosphere of a hot-bed is so charged with humidity that perspiration cannot go on, so that the vital energies of the plant, instead of being wasted by evaporation, are directed to the formation of new mouths by which to feed.

This is but a brief outline of what the principles are upon which the common operations of the Fruit Garden depend; yet it is hoped that it may not be without its use in calling attention to the rationalia of

what may seem extremely simple and well-understood practices, but which are undoubtedly neither so perfect, nor generally so skilfully performed, as to be incapable of amendment.

« НазадПродовжити »