CHAP, in S Y L V A 223 



bear upon their tops : The beds wherein you sow 

 them had need be shelter'd from the southern aspects, 

 with some skreen of reed, or thick hedge : Sow them 

 in shallow rills, not above half-inch-deep, and cover 

 them with fine light mould : Being risen a finger in 

 height, establish their weak stalks, by sifting some 

 more earth about them ; especially the pines, which 

 being more top-heavy, are more apt to swag. When 

 they are of two or three years growth, you may 

 transplant them where you please ; and when they 

 have gotten good root, they will make prodigious 

 shoots, but not for the three or four first years com- 

 paratively. They will grow both in moist and barren 

 gravel, and poor ground, so it be not over-sandy and 

 light, and want a loamy ligature ; but before sowing 

 (I mean here for large designs) turn it up a foot deep, 

 sowing, or setting your seeds an hand distance, and 

 riddle earth upon them : In five or six weeks they 

 will peep. When you transplant, water them well 

 before, and cut the clod out about the root, as you 

 do melons out of the hot-bed, which knead close to 

 them like an egg : Thus they may be sent safely 

 many miles, but the top must neither be bruised, nor 

 much less cut, which would dwarf it for ever : One 

 kind also will take of slips or layers, interr'd about 

 the latter end of August, and kept moist. 



3. The best time to transplant, were in the begin- 

 ning of April ; they would thrive mainly in a stiff, 

 hungry clay, or rather loam ; but by no means in 

 over-light, or rich soil : Fill the holes therefore with 

 such barren earth, if your ground be improper of it 

 self ; and if the clay be too stiff, and untractable, 

 with a little sand, removing with as much earth 

 about the roots as is possible, though the fir will 



