NURSERY. 



211 



after, the young plants may be taken up, and replanted in 

 the nursery. It is important that the situation be such as 

 to admit of a free circulation of air, and open to the sun, 

 that the plants may be preserved in a healthy condition. 

 Plants, reared in a confined and shaded situation, in a large 

 town, and removed to an open exposure in the country, 

 will long continue in a debilitated condition ; like a puny 

 city invalid, their growth will be greatly impeded, and 

 many years will elapse before they attain to a state of vig- 

 our, health, and hardihood. 



" In MarshalVs Rural Economy it is directed, that the 

 ceediing plants, when taken from the seed-bed, be sorted 

 agreeably to the strength of their roots, that they may rise 

 evenly together. The tap, or large bottom root, should be 

 taken off, and the longer side-root-lets should be shortened. 

 The young plants should then be set in rows, three feet 

 apart, and from fifteen to eighteen inches asunder, in the 

 rows ; care being taken not to cramp the roots, but to bed 

 them evenly and horizontally among the mould. In strict- 

 ness of management, they ought, two years previous to their 

 being transferred to the orchard, to be transplanted into 

 immanured, double-dug ground, four feet every way apart, 

 .in order that the feeding fibres may be brought so near the 

 stem, that they may be removed with it into the orchard, 

 instead of being, as they generally are, left behind in the 

 nursery. Hence, in this second transplanting, as in the 

 ilrst, the branches of the root should not be left too long, 

 but ought to be shortened in such a manner as to induce 

 them to form a regular globular roof, sufficiently small to be 

 removed with all their plants, yet sufficiently large to give 

 it firmness and vigour in the plantation." — Thacher^s Or- 

 chardist, 



A nursery should not be on a spot where fruit-trees have 

 lately grown, or, indeed, any other deep-rooted plants. 

 Miller advises to have a nursery of forest-trees in the place 

 where the forest is designed to be planted, so that % suffi- 

 cient number of the trees may be left standing, after the 

 rest have been removed. 



" If a nursery be in such a situation that the young trees 

 are in danger of being broken down by deep snows, either 

 the fence on the windward side should be made so open 

 that the wind may have a free passage through it, and drive 

 av/ay the snow, or else the trees may be defended by 

 staking. A stake a little taller than the tree, made of a 

 slip of board, should be set close on the windward side. 



