THE CULTURE OF PLANTS 



hand it may be sowen, or rather keept in a couch 

 of sand, as the great maple, till the spring ; for it 

 comesupthat season; it affects alight soil, no clay es. 



The walnut and chesnut, albeit they be fruit- 

 trees, I plant without the orchard walls ; their nuts 

 ripe in the beginning of October. When they begin 

 to fall, take them off , and rub off the outward husk, 

 but do not weet them; then order them as acorns 

 they come up the first season, and affect a light 

 loamy earth. I could wish for more of the seed of 

 horse-chesnuts from Turkie. 



The black cherrie or geen is a tree that I love well 

 in avenues and thickets; there is a sort at Niddrie- 

 castle, where I was born, seven miles west from Edin- 

 burgh, whose fruit is preferable to any cherrie : I 

 take it for a sort of heart, but it's a great bearer 

 (which propertie the heart-cherrie wants), they are 

 best stocks for standard cherries. The learned Eve- 

 lyn and the ingenious Cook take notice of this 

 tree. 



Gather their fruit when full ripe, the beginning 

 of August; eat off the fleshy part, i.e. the fruit, and 

 lay the stones to dry a little ; then lay them by 

 stratums with earth, which prepares them, if sow'd 

 at spring, to rise that season, otherwayes, they ly 



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