The Gardener's New Director. 261 



ed during the winter, laying on half an inch of good 

 kitchen-garden mould, in which v/as not any fand, left, 

 by watering, the fine mould fhould be taken off the 

 young roots, which is a caution neceffary to be attended 

 to, where a light covering is neceffary. The feedlings 

 came up well, and in June their leaves decayed, during 

 which time, and until the middle of y?//^z//?, I gave them 

 little or no water, but put a good covering ot the com- 

 pounded earth on their boxes; the winter and fpring tol- 

 lovving, I ufed them as I had the year preceding, until 

 Junet when their leaves faded ; at which time I lifted 

 their roots, and found them as large as hazel-nuts, and 

 quite found, and of a fine fize tor their age, in propor- 

 tion to their mother-roots; which, notwithilanding they 

 feeded with me, bloffomed as ftrong the fecond year, as 

 they did the firfl, when I received them from Holland ', 

 but fuch as perfected their feed, I took care to fhift into 

 new beds of the comport I have already directed for 

 them. 



To return to the culture of the feedlings: Having 

 taken them out of the boxes, I laid their roots to dry in 

 the root-room, which I clcanfed, after they had dried 

 fome days ; then I made up a bed of the fame compoif, 

 except that in this I put but half the quantity of the 

 dry (and, into which I planted them two inches deep, 

 and four inches diftance every way. In winter I cover- 

 ed the bed with two inches of fine rotten tan; by the 

 end of February I removed it by hand, and in March the 

 plants (hewed their leaves well, three of them fhevving 

 flowers, one of which was a large bell, and of an ad- 

 mirable fnow-whiie colour, chequered with blr.ck ; the 

 other was of the kind they called Monjlrum in the Dutch 

 catalogues ; the third was exactly of the colour ot an 

 apple-tree bloffom. As foon as their leaves had almoft 

 decayed, I cut off their ftalks a little belovv the furface 

 of the earth, with a pair of fciffars, in order to flreng- 

 ihen the roots, taking off more than one inch of the old 

 earth, and covered them with two inches of new, and 

 in Kovemher again covered them with old tan, wluch in 

 the beginning of Man/^, when the thaw came on, 1 re- 

 moved ; and in April I had fuch a blow of feedlings as was 

 never before feen in Brit.iiny and, ^-nou^fl them, feven 



T forts 



