252 



The shows used for this sort of work are generally the 

 short kind, the longer sort being reserved for the roofs of 

 houses, in this district of the country. The former kind 

 after one year, and still more after two years, greatly decays. 

 By the second summer, when dug down, as directed above, 

 they will serve to open and meliorate a clayey or loamy soil. 

 Should the land be very light, they may be thrown off, pre- 

 viously to the pointing with the spade. 



As the stirring of the mould round newly planted trees is 

 more or less injurious, as just now stated, to the minute and 

 capillary rootlets, there is another way, in which I have 

 sometimes treated trees, and which it may be worth while 

 to mention in this place. By those planters, who have large 

 designs to execute, it may be considered as less laborious, 

 than hoeing round the plants for several years ; and to others, 

 whose taste has been formed on the w^orks of the great mas- 

 ters of landscape, and who, for that reason, would reject 

 whatever seems frittered into detail, or what they might term 

 spotty in the picture, the appearance of circular hoed spaces 

 round trees, might at all events be displeasing. To such 

 planters I would recommend, when the shows are no longer 

 necessary, instead of pointing over these spaces with the 

 spade, immediately to sow them down with grass seeds, that 

 is, after the first or second season, according to the species of 

 the trees planted. As soon as they are properly established 

 in the ground, which, situation and circumstances considered, 

 may be by the fourth, or fifth, or sixth year, a topdressing 

 should be applied, consisting of earth and coal-ashes, such 

 as has been described at p. 189., of which the ingredients 

 are thoroughly mixed, and the surface should then be ulti- 

 mately laid down with grass seeds. Thus, a general che- 

 mical action being excited throughout the compost, the most 

 propitious period will be seized, for giving an extraordinary 

 stimulus to plants just recovering from the process of removal ; 

 and there are few trees so treated, that from thenceforward 



