cruickshank's practical planter. 357 



naturally extends, depending on the ripening of the 

 seed, and also on the power of occupancy, is how- 

 ever different from that where it will grow% when 

 ripe seeds are procured from the coldest place where 

 they ripen, and all the competitors removed ; and 

 imder the system of shelter belts, hardy pine nm*ses, 

 and seeds from the nearest place where they ripen, 

 we have no doubt that oaks may be extended to a 

 colder situation than Nature herself would have 

 placed them in. For the higher more bleak por- 

 tion of the country, we would recommend acorns 

 grown in Scotland, in preference to those imported 

 from England. We have several times observed 

 w^heat, the seed of which had been imported from 

 England, sustain blight and other injuries in a cold 

 moist autumn, when a portion of the same field, 

 sown of Scots seed, at the same time as the other, 

 and under the very same circumstances, was entirely 

 free from injmy. English acorns are also frequent- 

 ly heated in the casks in which they are imported, 

 which must impair their vigour 



* We are indebted to our friend Mr Gorrie, Annat Garden, for 

 the fact, that English acorns throw up a much more luxuriant stem 

 than the Scots ; they forming a step of several inches when plant- 

 ed next each other in the nursery line. We should consider this 

 to arise from the largeness of the rudiments of the plant, and 

 greater quantity of garnered nourishment in the English acorns. 



