NURSERIES. 



109 



pure air, which all tend to shorten the life of the 

 resulting individual, to accelerate the period of its 

 seeding, and to increase its reproductiveness ; the 

 nurseryman shoidd pay the utmost attention to the 

 seeds he makes use of, procvuing them as recent as 

 possible, and preserving them in w^ell-aired lofts, or 

 under sheds, and also retaining them in the husks 

 till the time of sowing : the superior germinating 

 power of the seed thus treated will repay this atten- 

 tion. 



From facts we are also assured, that, in some hard 

 wood kinds, and also in the Coniferae, the hanging of 

 the growth of the young plant, the spindling up in the 

 seed-bed, or injudicious deterring treatment after- 

 wards, have a tendency to injure the constitution of 

 the individual, inducing premature seeding, and di- 

 minutive old age ; and also, that when plants, espe- 

 cially of some size, of these kinds of trees have their 

 roots much broken, the secondary or new roots often 

 partake something of the nature of the infirm run- 

 ners, which, in most kinds of trees, are thrown out 

 by layers, — the resulting tree, as in the case of those 

 from layers in fruit trees being dwarfish, sooner ex- 

 hausting itself by reproduction, and sooner decaying. 

 For distinctness, we shall recapitulate : 



3 



