Respecting the transplanting of Chestnut trees, I have seen the experiment tried by others, and have tried it myself, but without success. I have taken them up much the same as we take up nursery trees, and planted them with care, but a speedy death was sure to follow. Finding that experiment a fruitless one, I resolved to take another method, which was to remove them from their native localities early in the spring, by cutting around them at a proper distance, (which was about eighteen inches or two feet from the tree,) with a sharp spade, and raising them carefully with as much earth as would adhere to their roots, placing them one at a time on a wheelbarrow and trundling them as gently as possible to their place of destination. Having previously dug the hole, the subject was immediately placed in it, to prevent injury from the sun or air, taking heed not to cover the roots too deeply. In this way I was pretty sure of success, as I was well aware that even the most tender evergreens flourish well under such treatment, for my observation and experience had abundantly proved it.

I was considerably elated with my experiment when I beheld the buds opening and the leaves spreading out in all the grandeur and magnificence which it was wont to display in its native forest. I bid my friends observe it as they passed, and signified to them that I had surmounted the difficulty of transplanting a chestnut tree. My trees flourished well through the summer and fall, and when the leaves were no longer an ornament, they drooped as usual. The next spring I observed on the opening of the buds, that the leaves looked sickly and to my great mortification that my trees were gasping hard for breath, and were evidently going into a decline, and finally died like their predecessors.

The question is whether the trees died from the effect of transplanting merely, or from an exposed situation, having previously been sheltered by the woods? Would not a few wisps of straw wound around the trunk of the trees, and some of their main branches, have been a barrier against the depredations of the frost and cold, so as to innure them by degrees to a more exposed situation? Is the chestnut less hardy than many other deciduous trees, say the Maple, Ash, Elm and the Oak? Last February I tried the plan of the frozen ball, so much encouraged in your valuable treatise upon horticulture; I went to the forest to look out for a subject of experiment. Having found one, I readily commenced digging around it, and to my surprise I had the task accomplished much sooner than I had expected. I left it to freeze; in a few days I returned with a pair of oxen and a stone boat, to take up my tree and transport it to the place of destination. The tree stood between two pines; I easily conceived the idea of running a chain across from one to the other, and hooked a tackle to it, and fearing lest I should injure the bark by drawing directly under the ball, in a square, so that I could take two draft chains and hitch to the four corners, and bring up the loops in the form of a bail, to which I attached the lower block of the tackle, and by means of a snatch block attached to a neighboring tree, and my oxen to the fall, in a moment it was swinging at a sufficient height to admit me to run two poles across the hole on which I run the stone-boat under the ball and and lowered it down carefully on it.

But the ball was not frozen sufficiently, and I lost considerable dirt. I however succeeded in retaining about two-thirds of a cart load with the tree, but that was somewhat crumbled and broken. As the tree had a handsome head, I hesitated to cut into it, though strongly urged to do so by my friends; not knowing what proportion to cut off, I let it remain, concluding that the chestnut was rather a tender tree, and would not endure much pruning. The whole experiment proved a failure. Although I have been baffled in my undertakings to transplant this beautiful, though common forest tree, and make it an ornament nearer home, I am not willing to give up so laudable an enterprise so long as there is a reasonable hope of success.

Now, if there is any course which you would recommend me to take to effect my object, I will pursue it with fresh vigor, and one day will give you the result of the experiment.

There is a young planter in my neighborhood who has set about raising a few chestnut trees on a piece of ground which he wished to ornament; he made many attempts, but all in vain; it seemed as if the fates were against him; at last with commendable zeal he planted the nuts, which came up in the spring and have flouished finely, and are now between seven and eight feet high. But I do not want to wait so long, as I wish to set them by the road-side; and the labor to protect them from stray cattle till they are old enough to stand unprotected, would be more expensive than to transplant large trees. When you give me the desired information, you will please to state what proportion of top to le:ive on the chestnut.

As to all the rest of the ornamental trees, both deciduous and evergreens, which we transplant, 1 am well versed in the manner of treatment, both in transplanting and afterwards. Regarding the deciduous trees; when I have not as good a supply of roots as I should wish, I trim nearly to bare poles, except a few spurs to aid them in starting; but if a tree is not vigorous enough to force out a sprout it will rarely succeed afterwards. It is an old adage that "experience teaches a dear school, but fools will learn in no other." And though I have no aching desire to claim its application to myself, I have, as I will own, learned a few lessons in that school which I trust will be of service to me in years to come. If I could have had the perusal of your valuable work, and useful hints on the Transplanting of Fruit and Ornamental Trees, both deciduous and evergreens, as given from the experience of your numerous correspondents, it would have saved me a great deal of pain, both of body and mind. Respecting what is laid down in your important work upon the pruning of evergreens, I know it to be a fact that they scarce ever need the knife or saw to improve their natural outline.