F O R E S T - T R E E S. 251 



I AM therefore againft raifing a Forefl, after this manner, with 

 other plants than the Walnut, Chefnut, Evergreen Oak, and a 

 few of the other nut-bearing trees, that do not eafily remove, 

 or grow freely after it, and even of thofe only where timber, 

 without regard to fruit, is defired ; in which cafe, fuch are pre- 

 ferable to the beft otherways cultivated plants, where the land 

 is not extremely bad. 



Other gardeners, and indeed I am afraid the greateft part 

 of them, argue in defence of planting feedlings two years old, 

 as the moft hardy, and likely to fucceed, in our barren, cold and 

 imcultivated foils. This practice, however univerfal, and long 

 fandtified by cuftom, has no weight with me, as, from many 

 trials, I have found it abfurd ; and I cannot help declaring, I 

 think it both againft nature and common fenfe, nor can I in any- 

 other way account either for its beginning or continuance, than 

 the bad culture too generally given our trees in the nurfery, to 

 which being removed from the feed-bed, they are dibbled in 

 without a proper redu6lion of their roots, fo as to procure abun- 

 dance of frelh fpreading ones, and crowded fo thick together, as 

 foon to become much worfe than good feedlings, from hard car- 

 roty roots, without mouths to feed themfelves, and tall flender 

 bodies, unable to bear a gentle breeze of wind. 



I PRESUME no honeft fenfible gardener will deny, that feed- 

 ling trees in general have one downright top-root, with few fmall 

 roots and fibres, in comparifon of fuch as have been raifed, their 

 roots {hortened, and tranfplanted ; or that thefe tranfplantations, 

 repeated at proper periods, will not ftill increafe the roots, and 

 otherways, by change of food and fituation, render the plants 



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