REMOVING FRUIT AND OTHER TREES. Unless much care is taken, the greater part of the small or fibrous roots of fruit trees are destroyed in digging; or if not thus destroyed, they are allowed to get dry, and consequently become worthless for the purpose for which nature intended them—that of supplying sap to the tree. This is especially the case with the evergreen tribe. Once dry, they can not be soaked into life again. The small roots are some times, though incorrectly called spongioles. The true spongioles—or root-hairs, as they have sometimes been called—are of annual growth, and are said to die with the fall of the leaf. They are supposed to extract plant-food from the earth, to be conveyed by the roots proper to the stems, branches, and leaves of the plant. The leaves have been called the lungs of the plant. They, however, decompose the air— consuming the carbon and nitrogen, and lib erating the oxygen. So, also, in the decompo sition of water; they hold the hydrogen only. Animals are said to liberate heat, vegetables to imprison ,it, and therefore it is by antithesis, and not by harmony that the relation exists.
Science is gradually throwing more and more light upon the economy of plant life, but the road seems as yet dark and wearisome to travel. But to return to the tree. If, when carefully dug, the roots being kept from the air and quite moist, they are honestly planted and thoroughly mulched, but little loss will ever ensue, even should the entire tops be left upon the tree. In fact, we have always had better success where we have left the top intact—cutting out only the irregular and superfluous brantbes—than we have ever had by the old method of excessive trimming. There is no doubt but that foliation stimulates activity in the root. The roots should be spread naturally, and fine soil packed carefully about them. If the ground is dry, a little water may be added and the earth leveled and mulched. If the tree is likely to be blown about, it should be staked. Trees so planted never fail to reward their owners.