The Fir. 



than half, and thought myself hicky to preserve what 

 remained. 



250. Tlie plants should be kept perfectly clear from 

 weeds, watered gently in dry weather daring the summer, 

 and the ground between the plants should be moved a little 

 gently now and then, so as to give the plants the benefit of 

 the dews. The wide alley will give scope for all this work, 

 and for the netting and mouse-catching. If you take a 

 narrower space than two feet, you will sometimes trample 

 the edges of the beds, and will be apt to disturb the edges 

 by fixing in the ends of the hooped rods. 



251. If the plants be taken proper care of, and if the 

 ground be suitable to them, they will in general be two or 

 three inches high by the month of October. They ought 

 to stand in the beds another year ; for they are so very 

 small, as to make it extremely difficult to transplant tliem, 

 in a proper manner, the first year. 



252. Having now brought the plants to the age at which 

 they are to be removed from the seed-bed, I proceed to 

 give directions for the removal. The preparation of the 

 ground in the nursery is precisely the same as for the Ash ; 

 but the plants must be taken up with the greatest care, and 

 there must be no pruning of roots, except just at the point 

 of the long middle root. The work shoidd be done in 

 October or in March, and not in winter. The plants ought 

 to be removed in such a way as to shake but little of the 

 earth from the fibres; and, above all things, the roots must 

 be close kept from sun and wind. 



253. The plants ought to stand in the nursery but one 

 year, or two at most, before they go into plantations, where 



