330 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



general, unless they are taken up the first year or two, is a 

 considerable impediment to the growth of forest trees : although 

 it be true that many of those which are found in woods, especially 

 young oaks, beeches and many others, spring from the self-sown 

 seeds ; yet being for the most part dropped and disseminated 

 among the half-rotten sticks, musty leaves and perplexities of the 

 mother roots, they grow scraggy, and being overpowered, become 

 squallid and are liable to accumulate moss. Nor can their roots 

 expand, and spread themselves as they would do, if they were 

 sown, or had been planted in a more open, free and ingenuous 

 soil. On the truth of this, experience affirms, that an acorn, 

 sown by the hand in a nursery, or ground where it may be free 

 from these obstructions, shall in two or three years outstrip a 

 plant of twice that age, which has either been self-sown in the 

 woods, or removed, unless by some favorable accident, it had 

 been scattered into a more natural, penetrable and better qualified 

 place j but this disproportion is yet infinitely more remarkable in 

 the pine and in the walnut, where the seed set into the ground, 

 usually overtakes a tree of ten years' growth which was planted 

 at the same instant. And, lastly, for that grafting and innoculation, 

 unless performed with the utmost skill, most frequently defeat 

 the design of the cultivator ; besides, if they are well set they 

 are liable to accidents from high winds, extreme cold, the 

 depradations of animals and numerous other causes. 



Of the Seminary. 



From the foregoing observations we may infer that the most 

 natural, direct and general way of raising trees and plants, is 

 from seeds. In order to this, proper soils must be prepared for 

 them, as suitable as possible to their respective natures ; and 

 when the ground is ready, and well furnished with the embryo 

 plants, it is properly and significantly called the Seminary. Its 

 situation should be as near the nursery as possible ; and as it is 

 of the utmost consequence to preserve the young plants from the 

 range of animals, the ground should be fenced round with poles 



