F O R E S T - T R E E S. 205 



pots, where they may continue two or three years as your occa- 

 fions require ; but keep them the firft feafbn under fhade and 

 flielter, and water them regularly and plentifully in dry weather, 

 after which they will reqviire no extraordinary prote6lion, or fur- 

 ther trouble, than watering, with other potted plants, as the fea- 

 fon requires ; only obferve, every fpring, to take away all the 

 earth that will come from the furface of the pots, and replace it 

 with that which is frefli and rich. 



These plants being now ftrong and hardy, may be removed 

 to the places of their abode for good, which ought to be either 

 by nature or art, a generous dry foil, and under the covert of 

 other trees at a proper diftance ; for though I never knew any 

 flrong plants of the Arbutus killed in a good , foil and fituation, 

 except early in life, in the year 1 740, yet, as I fhould not chufe 

 running the fmalleft rifque of loling whole plantations of fo love- 

 ly trees, and waiting ten or twelve years to fee them again in 

 any degree of perfection, I would warmly advife, that every 

 nurferyman, at leaft fuch who have the advantage of protecftion, 

 fliould keep a large ftore of well-grown plants of them, from 

 tliree to fix or eight feet high, in pots, leaft fome fatal ftorm 

 Ihould again rob us of thofe in the open ground, and which 

 would in fome meafure repair that misfortune. 



The reafon of diredling the confinement of thefe plants fo 

 long in pots, is, that their roots are naturally loofe and ftrag- 

 gling, with very few fibres, from whence great numbers of them 

 never mifs to fail when removed to the open ground ; but being 

 contra6led in their bounds, and afilfted by the heat of the bark, 

 their difpofitions are changed, and they produce roots and fibres 

 in great abundance. 



