ERROKS IX PROPAGATING OAK. 



209 



them, arrests their progress, aiid keeps them station- 

 ary till a cure he effected hy some artificial means. 

 That transplanting, especially a second time, is fully 

 adequate to induce this disease upon young oaks 

 cannot be doubted, when we consider the sickly and 

 languid state in which they remain for at least two 

 years after undergoing the process. 



If what has now been advanced be in any mea- 

 sure correct, the oak, instead of being transplanted, 

 ought to be raised from the acorn in the place where 

 . it is intended to remain ^. The methods of cultivat- 

 ing it, therefore, which have hitherto been practised 

 in Scotland, and as far as I know in other countries, 

 are radically wrong. The least exceptionable of 

 these is as follows : — When a piece of waste land is 

 to be planted, oaks are procured from the nursery of 

 from three to five years old, having been previously 

 transplanted. Holes, or pits as they are termed, are 

 then made with the spade, at about four feet dis- 

 tance from one another ; into these the roots of the 

 plants are inserted and covered with earth. Now, 



* Since writing this work, I have learned^, that the plan 

 of raising oaks from the acorns, in the spots where they are in- 

 tended to remain, has been recommended by authority far su- 

 perior to mine, viz. by Dr Yule, in the Horticultural Memoirs, 

 and by Mr Sang in the Planter's Calendar. 



O 



