Th^ Elm. 



1237. The beds being kept careftiUy weeded, and most 

 effectually guarded against birds, which I defy you to do 

 unless you cover with glass, w^hich is bad for such things, 

 or with a net that is so line that a Finch cannot by possi- 

 bility get its head through, it being impossible to guard 

 against the birds by coarse nets, which, though you double, 

 or treble, or quadruple them, will shade the ground, and 

 ■will yet leave some hole for the birds to get through : these 

 precautions being taken, your plants, which are very 

 slender, and which may stand very thick in the seed-bed, 

 will be fit to go into the nursery in the month of October, 

 or early in November, after which their treatment is to be 

 precisely that of the Ash, even to cutting down the second 

 year, and pruning as directed in paragraphs 127 and 149. 



238. With regard to distances, it is hardly necessary to 

 speak of them, as Elms are generally destined for avenues, 

 hedge -rows, or independent situations; they may, however, 

 form a clump, or even a plantation; and in that case you 

 must prune and thin out, as the plantation grows, in the 

 same manner as directed for the Beech in paragraph 149. 



239. Elms, like all other deciduous trees the bark of 

 which is of no use, are cut when the leaf is off, and the sap 

 is down. Young ones will come up in prodigious numbers 

 from the roots after the tree is cut ; and therefore the best 

 way is to grub the tree, and to rely upon the seeds for young 

 ones. A quart of Elm seeds consists, I should think, of 

 about two thousand in number. These will stand very con- 

 veniently upon one rod of ground, as a seed-bed. Here 

 are two thousand plants obtained at the expense (if of 

 English seed) of less than half -a-cr own, weeding and every 

 thing included. A man will dig the rod of ground in an 

 hour, and sow it in another; and it would be hard to find 



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