REARING 'OF HOLLYS AND SHRUBS. 19 



and of your own choosing; but the case is more 

 difficult when you have to do with old trees copsed 

 with hemlock, nettles, and brambles, and surround- 

 ed with bad hedges, of many blanks, and choked 

 root and branch, with an absolute matting of grass. 

 Do not go in a passion to root out trees and all, but 

 exercise a little of that patience which belongs to a 

 slow and steadfast revenge, and which bears with 

 pleasure a present annoyance, because of a plan 

 which, though not quickly, will surely accomplish 

 the triumph of a thorough correction. Every ad- 

 vanced tree is of great price; it is the purchase of 

 time, not of money. Let a sufficiency be spared, 

 lest, in future, waiting on young plants, you re- 

 member the old, and repent the rashness. 



Begin by ordering from the nursery one hundred 

 hollys. Plant them in the best piece of border 

 ground your garden can afford, in rows eighteen 

 inches apart, and six or eight inches distant in the 

 row. Let them remain till they are good large 

 bushes of two feet in height, giving them all the 

 while the advantage of frequent hoeing in summer, 

 and slight digging between the drills in winter. 

 By this process not only do they rapidly expand 

 above ground, but, which is more important, they 

 form, instead of the whip-lash roots of the seedling 

 bed, a very fleece of fibres, to which the earth ad- 

 heres, and by which, when transferred to the shrub- 

 bery, their growth is at once sure and vigorous. 

 Along with the hollys, lay in a small stock of 

 Portugal laurels at threepence each, common lau- 



