When we look back on the description of this practice, it seems tedious; but much of the work is done sooner than described. Were it of sufficient importance, trees might be grown in something like _lazy beds_, with water always standing in the dividing trenches, about fifteen inches lower than the surface, which would procure roots very manageable by this practice. We once had a small nursery of oaks so situated, and the trees which were removed, when of considerable size, had roots uncommonly matted and fibrous, and which carried with them a large mass of soil. These succeeded very well when transplanted, but we should consider that plants from a drier poorer soil, with roots equally fibrous, would be preferable, could they be extracted with as much adhering earth, which, however, could not be accomplished without preparation and considerable labour. Were it the only consideration to procure plants which would best {240} support the transplanting when of considerable size, this, or the practice of cutting the roots, and encouraging the rooting by manuring and thickening the earth around the stool, would merit attention; but as we have already stated, we consider plants with these matted roots not so likely to grow to large timber as those with several unchecked large diverging root-leaders. 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].