General Notices. 327 



tliough success may occasionally be obtained in indifferent soil, it will after 

 all be but a mere exception, and must not be taken as a proof that plants 

 ■will grow and thrive in any compost, however carefully attended to, unless 

 some attention is paid to their natural wants and habits; and, furtlier, it 

 should always be recollected that plants in pots are in an artificial position, 

 and tliat tliey require a proportionate amount of care in their cultivation. — 

 [Id., 1850, p. 357.) 



The Deodar Cedar. — After noticing the extreme hardiness of tliis 

 tree, and alluding to tlie effect it will have when more generally planted, 

 on ornamental and landscape gardening, he proceeds :— " Witli regard 

 to soils, it is an astonishing tree ; almost any kind seems eligible. I 

 have found it to thrive equally well on tenaceous loams, and on light sandy 

 soils, or on any of those with a mixture of peat, leaf soil, or on any other 

 vegetable matter. The deodar will not thrive in a swamp," but swampy 

 ground, or tlie margins of pools, may be planted Avith tliem, if tlie following 

 precaution be taken : — "A slight excavaUon was made Avhere tlie tree was 

 to be planted ; the excavation communicated witli tlie outlet or issue ; and 

 both excavations and outlet were filled to nearly the ground level with 

 bricks, stones, or other imperishable materials. On this tlie deodar was 

 planted, and, of course, when filled up and the turf restored, they stood on a 

 slight mound, which, in consequence of the amount of organic material (or 

 new tree leaves) has gradually sunli, and now the deodars on tliis moist site, 

 appear as though they had been planted below tlie ordinary level." — [Jour, 

 of Hod., 1850, p. 284.) 



Raising Oaks from Seed. — I shall be happy to give you all tlie infor- 

 mation I can about tlie management of the New Forest. I confine this to 

 tlie system followed of raising the oak from seeds. First tlie acorns are 

 gatliered from tlie trees in tlie forest : they are then sown in beds, and trans- 

 planted at one or two years old, into the nursery lines, sixteen or eighteen 

 inches row from row, and six inches plant from plant in the row. In this 

 place they remain till some of the trees are large enough to plant out, which 

 is generally four or five feet high. When that is tlie" case, the largest plants 

 are taken up with the Scotch planting spade. It generally happens that, 

 though tliese plants are all of the same age,, some of them being stronger- 

 growing sorts, are much larger than tlie others. The strongest only are 

 pruned to one leader, and planted out ; the remainder are taken up, pruned, 

 and planted in nursery lines, tlie same distances as at first. In tliis place 

 they remain till they are the size required ; then tlie strongest plants are se- 

 lected, as before, and tlie weak ones either bedded back, as before, or tlirown 

 away ; tiius making many of the plants ten or twelve years old before they 

 are planted out, and many of them much older, and some are stunted scrubby 

 things after all the trouble and expense they have cost. If the enclosure is 

 examined the first year after planting, it will be found tliat many of the lead- 

 ers are dead. This 1 attribute to their selecting a leading shoot, and then 

 cutting all the young shoots from it. Such is the way in which the oak is 

 first raised in the New Forest. I shall state, in my next, how the enclosures 



