468 CruickshanV s Practical Planter. 



exposed to the depredations of mice. The lime will be found 

 to have a great effect in accelerating vegetation. The acorns, 

 being planted, will give no more trouble for two years ; at the 

 end of that period, remove the supernumeraries, by cutting 

 them, below the collar, an inch or two under the surface. 

 One man will thus clear several acres in a day. Now, and 

 every two or three years afterwards, look round and see that, 

 when any branches of the nurses overshadow the oaks, the 

 plant from which it proceeds be immediately cut down : where 

 branches do not overshadow, they do no harm, and may re- 

 main. At 5 years old, give the oaks their first pruning, and 

 look over them every 2 years, till they are between 20 and 30 

 years old. 



" The expense of the lime, for an acre, will be about 3s. ; of the acorns, 

 1*. ; and of the planting, including spreading and digging-in of the lime, 

 about 3s. more : so that the total expense will not exceed 16s. per acre." 



If, instead of trenching patches 2 ft. square, a square foot 

 be dug, the cost will be reduced in the ratio of 5 to 1 ; but 

 this saving at first will be a loss in the end. 



In a succeeding section, on the culture and management 

 of succession crops of oaks, the author points out the error of 

 neglecting to provide shelter for the shoots which proceed 

 from the stools. The whole copse " is cut down on the 

 return of the stated period, at one fell swoop, without leaving 

 a single twig that might help to ward off the blighting blasts 

 from the ensuing crop." (p. 259.) 



" An oak-coppice may be kept continually under shelter, by adopting the 

 following very simple plan : — Instead of proceeding as with a field of 

 grass to be made into hay, and laying all flat before us, if we leave standing 

 as much of the coppice as will shade the stools, whose produce is cut down, 

 from the rays of the morning sun, the rising shoots will have abundant 

 shelter from the effects whether of winds or frosts. As soon as these 

 shoots are of sufficient height to shelter one another, the nurses may be 

 cut down : their stools will be sheltered in their turn by the young crop 

 which has just got up around them; and thus the whole will have the 

 advantage of uninterrupted protection from the injuries of the weather." 

 (p. 260.) 



In answer to the objections which might be made by pur- 

 chasers, to the trouble of leaving one eighth, one ninth, or 

 one tenth of the stools, he would deduct a corresponding 

 portion of the price per acre, and mark each stool to be left 

 by turning up a sod. This trouble would only be required 

 the first time ; because, in every after-cutting, the new crop 

 of coppice would always be so far behind the crop to be cut 

 down as to be easily distinguished from it. 



Where transplanted oaks have formed, as they generally do, 



