OAK-TREE. 
general. . 
Mr. Nichol has ded that nothing affifts more in the 
propagation and prefervation of timber than thorns and 
bufhes, efpecially where there are no fences to keep off 
cattle. Underwood never fails to bring a flock of timber 
on a favourable foil ; and the deftruétion of buthes in lands 
not inclofed, will affuredly prevent a fucceffion of timber, by 
depriving the young plants of their nurfes, and leaving the 
acorns that are cafually dropped expofed to various enemies. 
. 
tended with th 
He has invented a good inftrument for iptroducing and plant- 
ing acorns among the bufhes. But in raifing a new wood, it 
muft be much more effectual to prepare and clean the ground 
well, and to fet the acorns in drills, that the young plants 
may be kept clean by horfe-hoeing till they can bid defiance 
to weeds and other annoyances. 
1n {peaking of the comparifon between fown and planted 
oaks, Mr. Plampin, of Chadacre, in Suffolk, affirms, that 
the latter are fo inferior to t mer, as to induce him 
to give a gen ti ntin i 
rengt 
of the lands lies in the fubftratum, while the furface of the 
il i e fhould fow, in order that 
the 
thefe lat circum- 
young plants as they ftand, and 
thereby check their downward tendency, as well as ftrengthen 
their horizontal roots. And it has been remarked, that in 
raifing oaks for timber, draining fhould be well attended to; 
nothing contributing more to their growth and health, than 
keeping the land dry, if it is in the leaft inclinable to be 
wampy or retentive of moifture. 
In the fecond volume of the Rural Economy of Norfolk, 
oaks are obferved to grow beft, and make the fineft plants 
and the moft beautiful trees, when they are raifed undif- 
When the 
plants have got large (four or five years old for inftance), 
occurs on Gunton Common. Scarcely 
thoufands, has mifcarried, and there are very few which do 
not flourifh erfon who had fome fhare in the bufinefs 
of this plantation, tells him that it was the employment of 
two men and a couple of horfes, almoft all the firit fummer 
after they were planted, to water them; not by a pailful, 
but by a hogfhead at once; which ferved for the fummer. 
his was a rational method; a pailful only tantalifes and 
farmer. timber- 
make it, on very {mall fums? He confiders the appro- 
priating of 50 acres out of every thoufand, as laying by a 
{mall part of the income of an eftate, that will not be miffed, 
at compound intereft, as an accumulating fund that fre- 
quently comes in very feafonable to flop a large gap. An 
he has now, of his grandfather’s fowing, about 26 acres of 
as fine young oak-timber as can be feen, which may be 
worth, in 25 or 30 years, 4000/. He has likewife, of his 
10 father’s 
