428 EXPERIMENTS ON THE DISEASES, &C. 



treading the earth firmly about the roots of the 

 plants. It will be necessary to form basins round 

 the plants on purpose to mulch them, if it should 

 happen to be a dry season the first Summer after 

 planting. It may, perhaps, be a saving of time 

 to put the plants in loosely at first, that you may 

 be able to keep up with the plough, and to return 

 afterwards to tread the mold and form the basins 

 for mulching. 



When the trees are become fit for poles, every 

 other one maybe cut down almost close to the ground 

 throughout the plantation ; always observing to cut 

 in a sloping manner, and as near to an eye as may 

 be. Those that you intend for timber should be 

 left in every other row, which will leave them 

 twelve feet apart every way : but if the soil be 

 rich and deep, it may be necessary to leave them 

 twenty-four feet apart. In many counties, parti- 

 cularly Hertfordshire, the underwood is more va- 

 luable than timber; in that case it will be more 

 judicious to leave but few trees for that purpose: 

 in the mean time the underwood will amply repay 

 you for the expence of planting, &c. besides the 

 rent of the ground, while at the same time you 

 have a sufficient crop of timber on the ground. In 

 Kent they generally plant out Chesnuts and Ash 

 for hop poles at three years old, and cut them 

 fourteen years after, which makes, in all, seventeen 

 years before they are fit to cut; and they bring 

 from one guinea and a half to two guineas per 



