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PLATANACE.E. 



common carpentry and joinery. Olivier tells us that its 

 wood is equal to that of any European tree for cabinet- 

 making, and that it is almost exclusively employed by 

 the Persians for their furniture, doors, windows, &c. 



When young, the wood is of a yellowish white colour, 

 but as it acquires age becomes brown, streaked with 

 reddish veins, and when polished is not unlike the wood 

 of the best walnut. To rear the Oriental Plane in Eng- 

 land, and see it acquire dimensions at all corresponding 

 to what it attains in its native districts, it ought to be 

 planted in a rich, light, free soil, sufficiently moist, but 

 not water-logged or wet at bottom. The situation 

 should be well sheltered and warm, not too much shaded 

 or crowded by other trees ; neither should it be in very 

 low damp bottoms, as in such the late spring frosts, 

 which have proved so injurious to this but more fre- 

 quently to the occidental species, are always more severe 

 in such localities than in more airy situations. By our 

 nurserymen it is commonly propagated by layers, as 

 these produce strong and saleable plants within a shorter 

 period than cuttings, which do not root so freely as those 

 of the occidental species. Seed also may be procured from 

 abroad, and plants so raised we should prefer to either 

 of the other methods. The balls or catkins in which the 

 seed is contained are fit to gather in October or November, 

 and the seeds, as soon as extracted and freed from the 

 down, should be either sown immediately in beds of rich 

 well-pulverized earth, and slightly covered or merely beat 

 down by the back of the spade, with some lumber or 

 litter thrown over them to keep out the frost, or they 

 may be kept till March or the beginning of April, mixed 

 with sand, in a situation secure from frost. In two years 

 the seedlings will be fit to run into nursery rows, from 



