LEAVES OF THE SYCAMORE. 91 



-early in the following autumn, when they are collected 

 and mixed up with sand, and put into a pit, and kept 

 till the following spring, when they are sown. If 

 planted in autumn when the seeds are gathered, the 

 young plants make their appearance so early that 

 they seldom escape being cut off by the frost. The 

 ground should be well pulverised for the reception of 

 the seed, but it must not be too rich, so as to stimulate 

 the growth of the young plants unduly, for if grown 

 too quickly they do not mature their wood sufficiently 

 to stand the effects of frost, which is likely to prove 

 injurious to them. One bushel of seed is considered 

 sufficient to sow a bed four feet wide and twenty-four 

 yards long. The seeds should be covered with about 

 half an inch depth of soil. After standing in the seed- 

 bed a year, the young plants should be placed out in 

 nursery lines two feet asunder, the plants standing 

 six or eight inches from each other. In two years 

 they will generally attain a height of from four to six 

 feet, and are ready for planting out. 



The sycamore will succeed in soils of very opposite 

 qualities, but a dry soil, which is soft and deep, is the 

 most congenial for its development, where it will 

 attain a height of twenty feet in ten years, and forty 

 feet sometimes in less than twenty years. 



Although it comes into leaf early in the season, 

 presenting a bright green appearance, which is very 

 attractive in the early spring, there is one great draw- 

 back to it, in its leaves exuding a gummy kind of 

 substance, to which dust and all the roving impurities 

 of the atmosphere adhere, so that the foliage soon 

 becomes dingy, and loses its look of freshness. For this 

 reason it is a bad tree to plant near a dusty road, 



