136 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



plant. Select the largest and finest nuts, giving the 

 preference to those which ripen and fall earliest. 

 Keep them in cool, damp earth in some barn or cellar 

 where rats and mice cannot reach them, and persist 

 in collecting till December. Then plant a part in 

 your garden or in any rich ground where they are not 

 likely to be disturbed ; letting the residue remain in 

 the boxes of moist earth where you first placed them 

 till early Spring; then plant these, like the former, in 

 rows two feet apart, with six inches between seed 

 and seed in each row, and give the rows careful cul- 

 ture for two years ; after which, set them where you 

 wish them to grow. 



I venture to suggest that he who has a rugged, 

 stony hill or other lot which he wishes to surrender 

 to forest should plow it, if it can be plowed, next 

 September or October ; if too rocky to be even im- 

 perfectly plowed, dig up the earth with pick and 

 spade, and sow it thickly with hickory nuts, walnuts, 

 chestnuts, locust and other tree-seeds, expecting that 

 some will be dug up and carried off by squirrels, etc., 

 and that others will fail to germinate. Go over it 

 with hoes the ensuing June or July, killing all weeds 

 and other infestations; and, nearly a year later, repeat 

 the operation, taking up young trees from your gar- 

 den or nursery, and filling them in wherever there is 

 room. Plant thickly in order to force an upward 

 rather than a scraggy growth ; and so that you may 

 begin to cut out the superfluous saplings for bean- 

 poles, hoop-poles, etc., three or four years thereafter. 



