Jan.'} PREPARING GROUND. 



ground mould, in preparing it for an Oak wood, 

 be as effe&ually drained, whether in refpeft to 

 furface water, or that ifluing from fprings, as if 

 it were intended to be cropped with wheat. 



In fituations where the plough cannot be intro- 

 duced, but where it is defirable to rear an Oak 

 wood, and where the foil is fit for the purpofe, 

 the following methods may be purfued. 



Firft, if the fituation be flickered, as the banks 

 of a river, or the like, the ground may be pitted, 

 in the fame manner as for ordinary planting, (fee 

 Forest Plantations for May), at the diftance of fix 

 feet from centre to centre. The pits fhould b 

 made eight or ten inches deep, if the foil will admit 

 of it, and, at the leaft, fifteen inches in diameter. 

 They mould be filled one out of another ; the 

 fward being pared thin off, and laid in the boN 

 torn, and chopped in pieces. In the prefent in- 

 ftance, we recommend this method, whatever na- 

 ture the fward be of; becaufe the pits are intend- 

 ed for acorns. The foil will, by this treatment, 

 be much meliorated by the firft of April, the fea- 

 fon for fowing the acorns. If the pits, however, 

 had been made in May, or the fubfequent months 

 of the preceding year, they would have been (till 

 better, by their receiving a longer fallow. If the 

 land be a ftiff clay, it is abfolutely necefTary that 

 the pits be made, if not in May, at lead in the 

 autumn months preceding the fowing. 



Suppofing 



