34 TREE-PLANTING. 



ripened in the best seasons, and on trees most 

 favourably situated. In favourable seasons the seeds 

 ripen in autumn, and may be sown in winter or early 

 spring ; the plants coming up in the ensuing summer. 

 The lime is a vigorous, pliant, well-balanced tree, 

 throwing out a great number of branches of a graceful 

 lateral form, and it attains to a great size in a short 

 period, according well with the meadows and culti- 

 vated ground with which it is often associated, not 

 thriving in dry poor soils. Where several kinds of 

 lime trees stand together, and throw out their 

 blossoms at the same time, the seeds easily become 

 hybridised, and produce various sorts, though they 

 may be gathered from one tree. It is seldom, how- 

 ever, plants are raised from seed, for when they can 

 be obtained fully ripe, which is not always, the 

 progress of the plant is very slow when compared 

 with that of layers, which always perpetuates the 

 original, or parent tree, and this plan of raising plants 

 from layers is invariably practised by nurserymen. 

 When lopped over at the surface of the ground, the 

 stool readily produces a number of young plants. The 

 young shoots are then bent down into the earth to the 

 depth of three or four inches, with their extremities 

 placed in an upright position, which forms the young 

 plant. The operation of laying down the shoots can 

 be done either in winter or early spring, and the 

 plants will become rooted and fit for removal by the 

 November following, when the young shoots, which 

 have been thrown out from the stool in the mean- 

 time (the produce of the preceding summer), should 

 be inserted in the ground like the others, to create 

 another crop of young plants, thus laying down and 



