60 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



doubt that sowing the acorns on the site of the plantation 

 was the prevailing method of raising oak to within the last 

 hundred years or so. 



The Hon. G. Lascelles, in a " Brief History of the Arbori- 

 culture of the New Forest," contributed to volume xiv. of the 

 Transactions of the Eoyal Scottish Agricultural Society, tells 

 us that acorns were sown in the New Forest at the end of 

 the eighteenth century, in the following manner: 



" Pits or beds of three spits of ground each were dug a 

 yard apart, and three acorns planted triangularly in each bed. 

 Half a bushel of acorns were allotted for each person to plant 

 in one day : two regarders attended every day during the 

 time of planting to see that it was properly done, and, after 

 the ground was fully planted with acorns, it was sown with 

 hawes, hollyberries, sloes, and hazel nuts, and drains cut 

 where necessary, and traps were set to catch mice, and 

 parsons attended daily to re-set the traps and keep off crows 

 and other vermin." 



Evelyn of course gives us copious directions on the 

 subject, which amount to the principle of sowing in situ and 

 transplanting to thin and patchy spots. He describes the 

 various steps necessary in forming a seminary or nursery, the 

 sowing of the acorns and their protection from vermin, and 

 the subsequent attention to the young plants and transplant- 

 ing. But the treatment of the wood from youth to maturity, 

 Evelyn says little about, and he seems to have fulfilled his 

 object upon laying down the principles of forming a plantation. 

 Marshall, the author of Planting and Rural Ornament, 

 published in 1796, also has much to say about the raising of 

 oak woods. This writer is an advocate of keeping the ground 

 sown with acorns cleaned and cultivated for the first few 

 years, and using the intervals between the rows for potatoes, 

 cabbage, and turnips. The seed is to be sown with a corn 

 crop, and the latter reaped, not mown. As the plants in- 

 crease in size they are to be thinned out by chopping out 

 the weaker individuals with the spade, and, where blanks 

 occur, they are filled up with plants from the thick patches. 

 Where groves are the object in view, rather than the pre- 

 vailing coppice with standards, it is recommended that ash 

 should be sown alternately with the oak, and the former cut 



