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TREATISE ON 



I HAVE been not a little diverted, to hear writers on this plant 

 fagely advifing to raife their leedlings with bulks of earth. It 

 will indeed require much care to do a thing nature has in a 

 great meafure denied, as bulks of earth cannot poffibly adhere to 

 plants deftitute of fibres, which thole, when young, without the 

 ailiitance of art, almoft totally are ; to culture, therefore, we 

 mufl have recourfe to raife them with bulks. 



For fmaller plantations, and to be provided in plants that 

 will remove with fafety, fow thefe acorns in drills two and a 

 half feet afunder and three or four inches in the drill, on good 

 generous foil ; let their growth here be promoted all you can by 

 feafonable watering, and keeping the ground clean, fweet, and 

 mellow : The fecond fpring after, with a fpade, clear away the 

 earth from one fide of the line of plants, about five inches deep, 

 and, with a Jliarp knife, at that depth cut the roots acrofs, at the 

 fame time clap your left hand on the plants, to prevent their 

 being in the leafl difturbed, and immediately replace the earth that 

 was thrown up, prefTmg it gently down with your hands. This 

 pra(5lice ought to be repeated for three or four years, making 

 them annually thinner as they increafe in fize ; and, from its 

 being well performed, I have had great fuccefs in removing 

 numbers of thofe trees. 



You may likeways raife the Ilex, by fowing their acorns in 

 pots, where, after remaining three or four years, they may be 

 lliaken out with the whole bulk of earth about them, and plant- 

 ed with abfolute fafety where they are to remain : But this is an 

 expenfive and tedious method, as fuch will make little progrefs 

 compared with thofe in the open ground j befides, the roots of 



