5CT. X. OF FOREST TREES. 123 



Avenues are now seldom planted, but when they 

 are, two good rows of elms, limes, chesnuts, &c. 

 should be set at the width of the house, at full thirty 

 feet distance in the rows ; to thicken which, inter- 

 mediate plants may be set : and also an inner row, 

 to be removed when the principal trees ate suffi- 

 ciently grown. Avenues to prospects, should be fifty 

 or sixty feet wide. 



The best season for planting the deciduous kinds 

 of forest trees, is the latter end of October, and 

 evergreen sorts, the latter end of March ; though 

 the soil, whether light and dry, or heavy and wet, 

 should somewhat direct ; evergreen trees (as well as 

 shrubs) being to be planted generally with safety, 

 early in autumn, if the soil is warm ; but in all cases 

 should be planted in dry weather, that the mould 

 may be loose to drop in, and lie close between the 

 roots, which is a material thing : Trees planted in 

 rain or mists, are sometimes injured by moisture 

 moulding the roots. 



Forest trees for planting are generally preferred 

 rather large, and being so, should not be taken up 

 idly, but with as much of an uninjured spread of 

 roots as possible : yet, free growing plants of about 

 three or four feet high, promise in the end to make 

 finer trees than those that are planted larger. Some 

 say they are best at this size from the seed bed; and 

 others, to have been once planted out, having had 

 their tap roots then cut, and generally speaking, this 

 is right, as they have a more bushy and horizontal 

 root. 



In the act of planting, let every thing be done as 

 directed for fruit trees ; i. e. the hole dug wide and 

 deep, the ground well broken, or rather sifted, to 

 lay immediately about the roots, &c. Let the trees 

 be made fast by stakes, and litter laid about their 

 roots to keep out frost and drought. It is of much 



