1728 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
are to be kept, they should be made perfectly dry in the sun, or in an airy 
shed, mixed with dry sand, in the proportion of three bushels of sand to one 
bushel of acorns, or with dry moss; and then excluded from the air and 
vermin, by being put into barrels or boxes, or laid up in a cellar, or buried in 
heaps, and covered with a sufficient thickness of earth to exclude the weather. 
If the acorns are to be transported from one country to another, the same 
mixing with dry sand or dry moss, and exclusion from the air, is adopted ; 
but the more certain mode of retaining the vital principle in acorns is, to mix 
them with moist earth, or with moist live moss (Sphagnum): in either of 
the latter mediums, they will germinate during along voyage; but no evil will 
result from this, provided they are sown immediately on their arrival. When 
acorms are to be sown in a nursery, the soil ought to be thoroughly prepared 
and rendered fine ; and, after the earth is drawn off the beds, or the drills 
opened, the acorns may either be scattered over the beds, or along the drills, 
so that the nuts may be about 2in. apart; and, to regulate this distance 
with greater certainty, the sand may be separated from the acorns with 
a sieve. In either case, the acorns, before covering, must be patted down 
with the back of a spade in the beds, and with the back of a wooden-headed 
rake in the drills. | The covering, which ought to be of well-broken soil, 
should vary in depth, according to the size of the acorn; 14 in. being enough 
for those of the largest size, such as those of the groups Robur, A‘Ibe, &c. ; 
and 2 in. for those of the smallest size, such as those of the groups 7‘lex, 
Phéllos, &c. No mode of depositing acorns in the soil can be worse than 
that of dropping them in holes made by a dibble. The acorn drops into 
the hole, and becomes wedged by its sides before it gets to the bottom; and, 
if the upper extremity of the acorn should be downwards instead of upwards, 
it can hardly be expected to grow. For this reason, the dibber should only 
be used in pulverised soils; and the point of the instument should be of a 
diameter greater than the length of the largest acorn which has to be dropped 
into the hole. As acorns are greedily devoured by vermin, and especially by 
land rats and mice, they ought to be sown in an open part of the nursery, not 
near hedges, ditches, or houses; and where, whether in nurseries, or in fields 
intended to become oak woods, much danger is apprehended from vermin, 
they ought not to be sown till late in March, so as to lessen the period be- 
tween the depositing of the acorn and its becoming a plant. 
As all oaks, when young, are remarkable for throwing down long and vigo- 
rous taproots, and producing few lateral ones, they ought to be sown where 
they are finally to remain, especially if the subsoil be good, and other cir- 
cumstances not unfavourable; but, as this cannot always be the case, it is 
customary among nurserymen to transplant the oak at one or two years’ 
growth, removing great part of the taproot ; some of them, however, shorten 
the taproot without removing the plant, by inserting the spade obliquely 
in the soil, so as to cut through the roots, at from 6in. to 8in. beneath 
the surface; an operation most conveniently performed when the oaks are 
sown in drills; because in that case the spade can first be inserted all along 
one side of the drill, and then all along the other. The French nurserymen, 
when acorns, walnuts, and other tree seeds which send down very long tap- 
roots, are to be reared with a view to being transplanted, sometimes germinate 
them in moist earth, or in sawdust, placed in a temperature of 50° or 60°; 
and, after the radicle has been protruded two or three times the length of the 
acorn or nut, pinch off its extreme point before the seed is committed to the 
soil. This treatment, which is applicable, as we have seen in the case of the 
horsechestnut (see p. 466.), to most large-seeded trees, has the effect of im- 
mediately causing the taproot to throw out numerous lateral fibres; which 
is highly favourable for transplantation, though it is not so for the rapid 
growth of the tree for the first year or two afterwards. To counteract its 
effect in this respect, when the tree is planted where it is finally to remain, and 
has grown there two or three years, it ought to be cut down to the ground ; 
after which it will throw up vigorous shoots, and send down perpendicular 
