50 THE NURSERY. [Jan. 



Conscious of the great utility of such establishments, I shall in 

 the course of this work give such ample and minute instructions, 

 for the raising and propagation of fruit and forest trees, ornamental 

 trees and shrubs, thorn-quicks, &c. &c, as may lead the most in- 

 experienced persons to a complete knowledge of the business; 

 which may be pursued upon a small or a more extensive scale, as 

 it suits. 



In the Nursery may also be raised all sorts of hardy harbaceous 

 plants, both fibrous, bulbous, and tuberous-rooted, for adorning the 

 flower garden, pleasure-ground, and to plant for medical use,&c. 



Extent, Soil, Situation, fyc 



With respect to the proper extent or dimensions of a Nursery, 

 whether for private use or public supply, it must be according to 

 the quantity of plants required, or the demand for sale: if for pri- 

 vate use, from a quarter to half an acre or more may be sufficient, 

 which must be regulated according to the extent of garden ground 

 and plantations it is required to supply; and if for a public nursery, 

 for any general cultivation, not less than three or four acres of land 

 will be worth occupying as such, and from that to fifteen or twenty 

 acres or more may be requisite, according to the demand. 



With respect to soil for a nursery, the nature and quality of this 

 requires particular attention. It ought to be naturally good for at 

 least one full spade deep, or if more, the better; always prefer a 

 loamy soil of a moderately light temperament, which cannot na- 

 turally be too good, notwithstanding what some advance to the con- 

 trary, even though the trees should afterwards be removed into a 

 poorer soil. Reason teaches, that young trees growing vigorously 

 and freely in a good soil, will form numerous and healthy roots, and 

 when they come to be afterwards planted in worse land, they will be 

 able, from the strength of their constitution and multiplicity of 

 roots, to feed themselves freely with coarser food. On the con- 

 trary, young trees raised upon poor land, by having their vessels 

 contracted and their outward bark mossy and diseased, will be a long 

 time, even after being removed into a rich soil, before they attain to 

 a vigorous state. If the roots of the young plants have not a good 

 soil, or sufficient room to strike in, there will be little hope of their 

 furnishing themselves with that ample stock of roots and fibres 

 which is necessary to a good plant, and with which every young 

 tree ought to be well furnished, when removed for final transplanta- 

 tion. 



Most of the authors who have written on the kind of soil most 

 suitable for a nursery have differed in their opinions, even so far as 

 to be almost quite contradictory to one another; and the common 

 opinion is in favour of the soil being the same, nearly similar, or 

 rather worse, than that into which the trees are to be finally plant- 

 ed. Hut this is selling, out upon a very wrong principle; for, were 

 a nursery to be established on a poor gravel or stiff clay, the plants 

 raised on such would be poor, small, hide-bound, starved things, very 

 unfit for planting in any land. 



