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THE planter's GUIDE. 



their speedy and full establislimeiit in the ground. No 

 plants, as I conceive, can be said to be fully established 

 in the ground, unless they shoot forth with freedom, 

 according to the soil in which they are placed, and that 

 appears to depend, in open exposures, on their complete 

 possession of all the PROTECTmG Peopeeties ; or, in other 

 words, that nearly as active a vegetation shall be carried 

 on, and nearly as great a deposition of nutrient matter 

 made in them, as in subjects of similar magnitude in close 

 plantations in the same soil and climate. That shoots of 

 equal, or nearly equal length should in any case be sent 

 forth by exposed as by sheltered trees (as is the case at 

 this place) is a fact probably unexampled in itself, and, 

 in order to gain belief, the thing requires to be seen, or at 

 least supported by very unexceptionable evidence. 



It has been calculated by some arboriculturists, and 

 probably with correctness, that a young plantation judi- 

 ciously prepared, and afterwards kept clean with the hoe 

 for seven or eight years, will grow more within that space 

 of time than it would do in twenty years, by the ordinary 

 method of planting without such preparation and keeping. 

 If this be true, I believe it may be said with at least 

 equal justice, that close plantations of removed wood, if 

 properly executed, and kept with the hoe for three years, 

 are equal to ordinary plantations of at least forty, or five- 

 and-forty years' standing in this climate. At the end of 

 four or five years, they will branch out on every side with 

 such luxuriance, as to require the utmost industry of the 

 pruner to restrain them within due limits ; and yet it is 

 indispensably necessary that they should be so restrained, 

 in order that the standard or grove trees should be kept 

 spiral, and the underwood subordinate in its character. 



Upon the whole, I may assert with truth, after the 

 experience of more than forty years, that there are no 



