cuuickshank's practical planter. 353 



of the practice — the preparation of the patches of 

 ground to receive the seed and the suhsequent 

 management — which merits attention. His very 

 particidar interdiction of the use of manure is, to 

 say the least of it, injudicious — as if it signified 

 to the plant whether it were forced hy the use of 

 lime, or hy a httle putrescent manure, both of which 

 Mr Withers would consider very advantageous ; or 

 as if there were much fear on our poor exposed 

 wastes of erring on the side of rendering the plant 

 delicate from over luxuriance ; its constitution, on 

 the contrary, would rather be strengthened. Mr 

 Cruickshank, in directing the removal of the fir 

 nurses, one thousand per acre to stand till they have 

 reached twenty-five years, fit for roofing of cottages, 

 and similar purposes ; and five hundred till they 

 have reached thirty-five years ; his dividing a slaked 

 boll of lime into five hundred spadefuls ; and his be- 

 stowing no hoeing or weeding upon his seedlings, 

 would show, without his admitting it, that he had 

 never practised this mode of forming plantation. 



Prefacing this system of rearing oak forest, Mr 

 Cruickshank in rather a clever manner points out its 

 advantages, and also the disadvantages and conse- 

 quent failures of planting young oak trees in exposed 

 situations. But after all his eulogy, we think he has 



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