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as foon after as the land is dry, and the weather favourable. 

 About a quarter of an inch thick will be fufficient covering for 

 the plants tofpring through ; but if they are covered at firit half 

 an inch, andjufl as the feeds begin to vegetate, half of that be 

 gently raked off with a fliort-teeth'd rake, it will be a material 

 improvement, as by that means the furface, which otherways 

 would have been a little hard and battered, will be loofe and 

 mellow, nor will the plants meet with any obftrucftion till their 

 appearance above ground. This circumftance, which, fo far as 

 I have feen, is not attended to at all, is yet of great importance 

 in die culture of plants, and fhould not only be pracftifed with 

 all the evergreen tribe, but indeed with all tree-feeds in general, 

 as it will greatly increafe the number, and accelerate both their 

 prefent and future growth. Many thoufands of plants, in flifF 

 ground and dry feafons, are fmothered, being unable to drug- 

 gie with a hard-crufbed furface, for want of this precaution ; and 

 however general the negledl of it has been, it is too obvious to 

 require further explanation, as every gardener of common fenfe, 

 and the leaft attention, muft plainly perceive this is removing 

 obllrudlions, and aflifting nature in her operations. 



I MUST here likewdfe obferve an almoft univerfal error in the 

 fowing thefe feeds, which is, that if the nurferyman has them 

 not as thick as a bed of Creifes, he efteems them an infufiicient 

 crop. This, however, is a moft barbarous and even difhonefl 

 pradlice, and the bad effeds of it have, more than any other cir- 

 cumftance I know, retarded the fuccefs of our plantations. The 

 plants thus raifed as thick as they can ftand, are ftarved and 

 dwarfifli, and, from want of air, fo tender, as to be affeded, and 

 often to periili, with the firft hard weather ; or if, from fiivour- 



