id 
THE THORN. 385 
sown the seeds should be rolled in or beat: down with the back 
of a spade. The cover on seeds that are kept a year should 
be about half an inch deep, and in March, just before the young 
plants break through, the surface of the beds should undergo 
a slight polish with a rake to remove all clods, and adapt the 
ground for the rising crop. 
Hard frost during spring is often fatal to the plants on their 
appearance ; it is therefore well to take the precaution of 
giving a slight covering of straw, fern, dry leaves, twigs of fir, 
or other evergreens, till the end of May. 
When the plants have completed their first year’s growth, 
they generally stand very unequal, ranging from four to nine 
inches, and sometimes a foot in height, according to the rich- 
ness of the soil and the nature of the season. At this age 
they should be loosened in the ground with a nursery fork and 
lifted, except the very small ones, which should be left for 
another year, when it is usual for a second crop to arise from 
a proportion of seeds that remain dormant in the ground 
during the first summer and appear during the second spring, 
when they are sheltered to some extent by the plants that 
are left in the beds of the first year’s growth. 
The transplanting should be performed in winter or early 
in spring, for few plants appear earlier in leaf, or suffer more 
if their roots are exposed to the droughts of spring. In trans- 
planting the plants for the first time, the lines should be ten 
or twelve inches asunder, and the plants three or four inches 
apart in the lines, in ground clean and in rich condition, or 
made so by manure. 
After the vigorous growth of two years in lines the plants 
should be removed. Hedges are frequently formed of plants of 
this description, but they are far inferior for that purpose to 
strong plants which have undergone the process of transplanta- 
tion two or three times. At their first removal from the lines, 
plants that are intended for trees, or for stocks for the propa- 
gation of rare and ornamental sorts by grafting and budding, 
should be selected, choosing the tallest and handsomest. 
These should have their straggling roots pruned, and be trans- 
2B 
