THE OAK. 



425 



protlueed i'rom natural growth, or wlilcli nearly 

 resembles this, seed planting. 



For raising the seeds in the nursery, a good 

 fresh loamy soil is selected. Having prepared 

 the heds, the acorns, which should also be well 

 selected, and taken from the finest trees, are to 

 be sown about three inches apart, and covered 

 over with the soil. This operation is best per- 

 formed in February, though some prefer the 

 autumnal months. In about six weeks the 

 plants will appear above ground; and in these 

 beds they may remain two years without any 

 further care than keeping them free from weeds. 

 The ground, when they are to be planted out, 

 must be prepared by deep trenching, or plough- 

 ing several times. The plants are then pulled 

 up, the tap root cut off, and a sufficient hole be- 

 ing made with a spade, successively placed into 

 the fresh earth, in rows four feet apart. A man 

 and boy will thus plant 1500 to 2000 in a day. 



In raising oaks from the seed, the ground is to 

 be prepared in the same manner, and marked 

 out into lines or spaces. The acorns are then 

 deposited about ten inches apart, in a hole made 

 with a dibble, and covered up. This is done in 

 February or March; and care is afterwards taken 

 to keep the ground free from weeds. As the 

 plants come up thinnings are made, and defi- 

 ciencies supplied as found necessary. 



In all cases of planting, shelter and warmth 

 are essentially necessary; and when the aspect 

 is unfriendly, the plantation should be skirted 

 to a sufficient thickness with Scotch firs, mixing 

 some of them also in the body of the wood. In 

 this manner an exposed situation may be made 

 to produce excellent timber; and when the trees 

 are grown to a size sufficient for their own pro- 

 tection, the firs in the centre should be removed, 

 otherwise they will injure the young oaks. On 

 the judicious thinning and clearing of young 

 wood depends much of the planter's success and 

 profit. 



The transplanting of large trees seems to have 

 been a circumstance long ago practised. Evelyn 

 thus alludes to it : " Veterem arborem transplan- 

 tare, to transplant an old grove, was said of a 

 difficult enterprise. Yet before we take leave 

 of this subject, let us show what is possible to 

 be effected in this kind with cost and industry. 

 Count Maurice, the late governor of Brazil for 

 the Hollanders, planted a grove near his delicious 

 paradise of Friburgh, containing six hundred 

 cocoa trees of eighty years' growth, and fifty 

 feet high to the nearest bough. These he wafted 

 upon floats and engines four long miles, and 

 planted them so luckily, that they bore abun- 

 dantly the very first year, as Gasper Barlasus 

 hath related in his elegant description of that 

 prince's expedition. Nor hath this only suc- 

 ceeded in the Indies alone ; Monsieur de Fiat, 

 one of the mareschals of France, hath with huge 



oaks done tlie like at Fiat. Shall I yet bring 

 you nearer home? A great person in Devon 

 planted oaks as big as twelve oxen could draw, 

 to supply some defect in an avenue to one of his 

 houses, as the Right Honourable the Lord Fitz- 

 harding, late treasurer of his Majesty's house- 

 hold, assured me, who had himself likewise 

 practised the removing of great oaks, by a par- 

 ticular address extremely ingenious, and worthy 

 the communication. 



" Choose a tree as big as your thigh, remove 

 the earth from about it, cut through all the col- 

 lateral roots till, with a competent strength, you 

 can enforce it down upon one side, so as to come 

 with your axe at the tap root ; cut that off, re- 

 dress your tree, and so let it stand covered about 

 with the mould you loosened from it, till the 

 next yeai-, or longer if you think good, then take 

 it up at a fit season; it will likely have drawn 

 new tender roots apt to take, and sufficient for 

 the tree wheresoever you shall transplant it. 

 Some are for laying bare the whole root, and 

 then dividing it into four parts, in form of a 

 cross, to cut away the interjacent rootlings, leav- 

 ing only the cross and master roots that were 

 spared to support the tree; then covering the 

 pit with fresh mould, as above, after a year or 

 two, when it has put forth and furnished the 

 interstices you left between the cross roots with 

 plants of new fibres and tender shoots, you may 

 safely remove the tree itself, so soon as you have 

 loosened and reduced the four decapitated roots, 

 and shortened the tap roots; and this operation 

 is done without stooping or bending the tree at 

 all. And if, in removing it, you preserve as 

 much of the clod about the new roots as possible, 

 it would be much the better. 



" Pliny notes it as a common thing to re-esta- 

 blish huge trees that have been blown down, 

 part of their roots torn up, and the body pros- 

 trate. To facilitate the removal of such mon- 

 strous trees for the adornment of some particu- 

 lar place, or for the rarity of the plant, there is 

 this farther expedient : A little before the hard- 

 est frosts surprise you, make a square trench 

 about your tree, at such distance from the stem 

 as you may judge sufficient for the root; dig 

 this of competent depth, so as almost quite to 

 undermine it, by placing blocks and quarters of 

 wood to sustain the earth ; this done, cast in as 

 much water as may fill the trench, or at least 

 sufficiently wet it, unless the ground were very 

 moist before. Thus let it stand till some very 

 hard frost do bind it firmly to the roots, and 

 then convey it to the pit prepared for its new 

 station, which you may preserve from freezing 

 by laying store of warm litter in it, and so close 

 the rftould the better to the straggling fibres, 

 placing what you take out about your new 

 guest to preserve it in temper. But in case the 

 mould about it be so ponderous as not to be re- 

 3 II 



