281 On the Planting of Forest- Trees. 



plants ns are stunted and branchy, which they are apt fo he^ 

 should in the winter of the second year be cut off close to the 

 g-round, or to the last visible bud; this will cause them to send 

 up one or more straight and vigorous shoots, the finest of which 

 should be selected, and the others removed in the winter ensuing 

 I have seen the Spanish chesnut, after being so cut down, pro- 

 duce a shoot of 5 feet high. After this operation the root will 

 have free open alburnum through which to propel the sap, instead 

 of the stunted, hard, original stem, and the plant will make cor- 

 responding progress. Subsequent care must be taken to confine 

 them to their upright course by the proximity of their nurses, 

 and at the same time to prevent their being injured by being too 

 much crowded. 



Every person who has paid the least attention to any branch of 

 culture must be aware of the advantaore resulting: from loosen- 

 ing the soil about the roots of plants, and the constant and 

 strikingly beneficial effects produced by that operation upon their 

 growth ; and all cultivators of common intelligence are aware that 

 this effect is owing to the free admission of air and moisture to 

 the soil and the roots of the plants, and also the facility afforded 

 to the latter of extending themselves in search of their proper 

 food. If the practice be so beneficial to annual plants, whose 

 roots are confined to a few inches of the surface of the soil, it 

 must be applicable with stronger reason to those of a more 

 durable kind, whose roots penetrate to a greater depth and take 

 a wider range. Nurserymen, whose profit depends upon the 

 rapid growth of their plants, invariably prepare their soil with 

 great care by draining, trenching, and manuring, and during the 

 progress of the plants cultivate it by repeated hoeings, for the 

 admission of air and the moisture it contains to the soil beneatb 

 the surface, as well as for the destruction of weeds, well knowings 

 the consequence of the neglect of these operations on the growthi 

 of forest-trees in their infant state. Farmers know full well the 

 ill consequences of purchasing young cattle from rich districts tO' 

 put them upon inferior pastures ; and all observant planters must 

 have noticed the corresponding ill effects of planting out trees- 

 from a well-managed nursery, upon a hard, bare, and uncultivated 

 soil. Such persons must also have noticed the very great differ- 

 ence, in every stage of their growth, of trees of most kinds 

 according to the accidental circumstances in which they were 

 placed ; whether growing in a hard, stiff, and almost impenetrable 

 soil ; or, on the contrary, in free sands and other loose soils ; in 

 hedge-rows of cultivated fields ; in gardens and pleasure-grounds ;; 

 in deep alluvial lands ; or where they are constantly manured by 

 cattle which resort to them for shade or shelter. In such situations- 



