Page:A Practical Treatise on Olive Culture, Oil Making and Olive Pickling.djvu/19

 inches long; but there their growth is very precarious. When ready for transplantation within a year the whole root system can be taken with the soil adhering to it and placed in the ground without disturbing it, and especially without exposing it to the air.

I consider this last point of great importance, for it is well known that all evergreen trees, whose vegetation is nearly always active, are of a very difficult transplantation. The slightest exposure of their roots to the air renders the starting in their new places very doubtful. Any one who has had occasion to transplant eucalyptuses, laurels, orange trees, etc., must be acquainted with this fact.

In support of this theory I extract the following, from a recent article of the Phœnix Herald, giving a few sensible hints on the setting out of an orange orchard:

"The greatest care must be exercised in transplanting the orange not to allow the small thread-like roots of the tree to become dry, for the moment they do so the tree is gone. The roots must be carefully dampened till the tree is safe in the ground. This is one of the most important items to be observed in transplanting."

The olive is just as delicate to handle as the orange tree, so that the older it is and the more developed its root system, the more danger it presents in transplantation, when even the most careful precautions will not always secure success.